Feng Menglong
The best-known compiler of anthologies of popular literature in the Ming dynasty. Born into a scholarly family in present-day Suzhou, he was recognized as an outstanding literary talent in his youth, but repeatedly failed to pass the civil service examinations. He held two minor posts between 1630 and 1638, before retiring from official life. In the middle years of his life he began to collect and edit popular fiction, poetry and jokes, and was also a respected playwright and editor of plays. His publications include collections of jokes, collections of classical-language stories and anecdotes, some revised versions of novels, and the San yan collections of stories: Yushi mingyan, Jingshi tongyan and Xingshi hengyan. These consist of 120 huaben stories, some of them written by Feng and his friends, others dating from earlier periods, which made an enormous contribution to the preservation of popular literature of the time.
Editor: Feng Hui
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