Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

世说新语

Rate this book
(魏晋风流故事集。以日本尊经阁文库宋本为底本。614则段子,614种雅趣。)(果麦经典)

《世说新菇》编于南北朝时期(公元420年-589年),主要记述了东汉末年至东晋时豪门贵族和官僚士大夫的言谈轶事,是我国魏晋南北朝时期“志人小说”的代表作。《世说新语》的编纂者是刘宋宗室临川王刘义庆。《宋书·宗室传》说他爱好文学,喜欢交接文士,他的门客中也有不少文人。刘义庆与这些人切磋交流,获益匪浅。后来,他参照晋朝裴启的《语林》、郭澄之的《郭子》,主持编纂了这本《世说新语》。

420 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 1, 1984

164 people are currently reading
62 people want to read

About the author

Liu Yiqing

19 books1 follower

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
33 (64%)
4 stars
9 (17%)
3 stars
6 (11%)
2 stars
1 (1%)
1 star
2 (3%)
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
434 reviews1 follower
April 25, 2025
无论历次考试考了多少次世说新语,我仍然深刻热爱这本骚话启蒙书。
Profile Image for VICKY.
139 reviews
August 20, 2025
虽然只看得懂译文,但还是感受且欣赏一些魏晋名士的“任性”。
7 reviews2 followers
January 30, 2021
Funny anecdotes, conversations and gossips of ancient Chinese noblemen, written in ancient classical Chinese. This book allowed men who lived thousands of years ago to come to life. And it’s cool because even though the society has changed so much over time, I feel like their sense of humor is not really different from ours today. This aspect entertains me a lot

Unfortunately i think this is a book most suitable for Chinese native speakers and perhaps those somewhat trained in classical Chinese. I’m not sure if anyone will be able to translate the content properly, as there are so many Chinese word tricks and concepts for which I can’t think of any English equivalents.
Profile Image for Karen Chung.
412 reviews107 followers
April 27, 2019
This edition is fine for what it is - the characters are large and easily legible, the pronunciation of each character of the original texts is given in Mandarin Phonetic Symbols, and the annotations and translations into modern Chinese are fine. I'm not really sure where this copy even came from - it's clearly second hand, since there are penciled notes in the first several stories. But the problem is...

...I noticed at the end of book one that there was a story in the online text that wasn't in the print version, so I penciled it into the book. Then I saw that about half the stories of book 2 were missing...so I got a complete, unabridged edition (the San Min 三民書局 edition) the next day and switched immediately to that. I spent about half an hour marking the stories I'd already read so I could read all the ones in between not included in the edition I'd been reading.

I don't see any indication anywhere in or on this book that this is a [fairly greatly] abridged edition. They really should have made this clear in some prominent place.

Some of the omitted stories are indeed a bit complex, in spite of their extreme brevity; in one, the commentators have different opinions about the interpretation of the last sentence. Another made me wonder if the abridgment tried to sanitize the original a bit - it was about a psychoactive (and also toxic) drug compound, 五石散/寒食散, that was reportedly made more popular after publication of this anecdote, to the great detriment of a great many people over many years, and it was certainly responsible for numerous deaths before it was finally condemned and made illegal in the Song dynasty, according to an online source I checked.

I like reading complete editions, and all of the stories omitted from this edition that I've now read in the San Min edition have a kick that makes them well worth reading. So if you're going to bother reading the Shihshuo Xinyu in the first place, get the San Min or similar edition and read the whole thing! And you might want to read this in conjunction with my former teacher Professor Richard Mather's annotated translation. I've ordered it online and am still waiting for it with great anticipation.
Profile Image for Hai Jiang.
19 reviews
September 7, 2017
Every educated Chinese should read this book and emulate the grace of ancient lifestyle. You need at least medium level ancient Chinese proficiency plus complete mastery of traditional Chinese characters.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.