Tales From a Forest Studio

Translator's note:

This project started because I became interested in Tang tales after reading Shifting Stories: History, Gossip, and Lore in Narratives from Tang Dynasty China by Sarah M. Allen, and wanted to translate some of them with my tutor, Glynis Jones. Tang tales are stories written in the Tang Dynasty about all kinds of topics: spirits, ghosts and transcendents but also stories without any supernatural elements at all. They often feature real historical figures as characters.

One of the easier sources of Tang tales to track down is the Taiping Guangji (太平廣記), which I will refer to as TPGJ from now on. This collection is available online at ctext. The text used for this translation is available here.