Chinese Myths

Myths were regarded with great scepticism by classical Chinese scholars and remained primarily a diffuse and fragmentary oral tradition, eventually preserved in writing only in a peacemeal fashion. Many of the classical texts were unavailable in translation and the stories have therefore been unknown to western readers. Anne Birrell has translated representative narratives drawn from over 1000 classical texts in her work on various aspects of Chinese mythology, and here she introduces a selection of them to the general reader. They are organized by theme and motifs to help set them in the context of mythology the world over.