Excerpt from Gems of Chinese Literature: Prose A second edition of this book has been long overdue, blocked, like many other enterprises, by the war. Its aim will be found fully set forth in the extract, given below, from the preface to the first edition. That edition has been care fully revised, and by many additional translations has been doubled in size and brought down to the present day. Short biographical notices will now be found with all the authors quoted, whose names have further been given in an english-chinese index, as a means of easy identification by students. Poems have been omitted; they are to appear in a companion volume. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.