Richard E Strassberg Libri

At last! Richard Strassberg's stunning new work provides a lively introduction in words and pictures to one of China's best loved and least understood classics, the Shanhai jing or Guideways Through Mountains and Seas. This classic of mythical geography and fantastic ethnography, full of wondrous stories and creatures, contains a treasury of information about the Chinese worldview and has inspired Chinese writers and artists for over two millennia. But until now, its strange vocabulary together with patchy transmission of both text and illustrations, have made it difficult to present to English- speaking audiences. His new book, the product of years of study by one of the few people truly qualified to analyze both text and the images, is sure to delight specialist and nonspecialist alike. - Suzanne Cahill, author of Transcendence and Divine Passion: The Queen Mother of the West in Medieval China

Wandering Spirits is a translation and study of the most comprehensive work on dream culture in traditional China - Lofty Principles of Dream Interpretation (Mengzhan yizhi), compiled in 1562 by Chen Shiyuan and periodically reprinted up to the modern era. This unique treatise compiles various theories, Chen's own comments concerning the nature of dreams and their role in waking life, and almost seven hundred examples assembled from a wide range of literary sources. This translation is accompanied by a full-length introduction that surveys the evolution of Chinese dream culture and the role of Chen Shiyuan and his encyclopedia.