Essays of a Recluse: A Complete Translation of the Qianfulun

by Fu Wang, Anne Behnke Kinney (Editor), John Major (Editor)

Overview

Under the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 CE), a self-described recluse wrote a series of essays denouncing the evils of his time. Assailing corruption, misrule, and neglect of the common people, Wang Fu’s Essays of a Recluse (Qianfulun) offers a rare outsider view of culture, society, and government during this period. This book presents the first full English translation of the Qianfulun, one of the most significant works to survive from the Eastern Han period.

Wang’s essays range across moral philosophy, cosmology, education, military affairs, and conflict in the borderlands. The essays decry governmental corruption and rampant litigiousness, as well as the callous neglect of the poor and the exploitation of women. To remedy these failures, Wang Fu calls for heeding the wisdom of the classics and implementing procedures for recruiting worthy officials. His focused interest in the common people and sensitivity to their travails make Essays of a Recluse a rich source of information about daily life during the Eastern Han period, providing insights into folk religion, divination, marriage practices, and the legal system. Widely admired in his lifetime, Wang’s essays were later singled out by Han Yu (768–824 CE) as one of the three great works of the period. Anne Behnke Kinney and John S. Major’s expert translation makes an important but notoriously complex and difficult work accessible to a range of English-language readers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231550413
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	06/03/2025
Series:	Translations from the Asian Classics
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	624
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Wang Fu (ca. 85–162 CE) was a scholar who lived on the western frontier of the empire during the Eastern Han dynasty. Said to be the son of a low-ranking concubine, he never held an official government post. The Qianfulun is his only surviving work.

Anne Behnke Kinney is professor of Chinese at the University of Virginia. She is translator of Exemplary Women of Early China: The Lienü zhuan of Liu Xiang (Columbia, 2014), among other books.

John S. Major, formerly professor of history at Dartmouth College, is an independent scholar. He is cotranslator of The Huainanzi (Columbia, 2010), among other books.

Anne Behnke Kinney (PhD, Michigan) is Professor of Chinese in the Department of East Asian Languages, Literatures and Cultures at the University of Virginia. Her publications
include Exemplary Women of Early China: The Lienü zhuan of Liu Xiang (Columbia University Press, 2014), Representations of Childhood and Youth in Early China (Stanford University Press, 2005), and Chinese Views of Childhood (University of Hawai’i Press, 1995). She is the director of the digital research collection, Traditions of Exemplary Women and Book Review Editor for Early China.

Table of Contents

Chronology
Translators’ Introduction
Preface
1. 讚學 In Praise of Study
2. 務本 Concentrating on the Root
3. 遏利 Suppressing Profit
4. 論榮 Appraising Eminence
5. 賢難 The Difficulties of the Worthy
6. 明闇 The Enlightened and the Unenlightened
7. 考績 Evaluating Merit
8. 思賢 Thinking About the Worthy
9. 本政 The Fundamentals of Government
10. 潛歎 The Sighs of a Recluse
11. 忠貴 Loyalty and Nobility
12. 浮侈 On Excessive Luxury
13. 慎微 Taking Care Over Minutiae
14. 實貢 Substance and Recommendation
15. 班祿 Ranked Emoluments
16. 述赦 On Amnesties
17. 三式 The Three Models
18. 愛日 Using [the People’s] Time Sparingly
19. 斷訟 Judging Legal Cases
20. 衰制 Governing in an Age of Decline
21. 勸將 Exhorting Generals
22. 救邊 Securing the Frontier
23. 邊議 Discussions of the Frontier
24. 實邊 Populating the Frontier
25. 卜列 Divination Set Forth
26. 巫列 Spirit Mediums Set Forth
27. 相列 Physiognomy Set Forth
28. 夢列 Dreams Set Forth
29. 釋難 Explicating Difficulties
30. 交際 On Social Relations
31. 明忠 Enlightenment and Loyalty
32. 本訓 Teachings on the Root
33. 德化 Transformation Through Virtue
34. 五德志 Treatise on the Five Powers
35. 志氏姓 A Record of Lineage and Clan Names
36. 敘錄 Postface
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Wang Fu was an impassioned critic of the social and political order of his day, especially irate at the obstacles faced by those without connections to the powerful. By translating Wang Fu’s wide-ranging essays, Kinney and Major bring much needed attention to this important observer of life in second century China.

Patricia B. Ebrey

Wang Fu was a most distinguished and interesting writer and thinker, and Qianfulun is an important source for both the philosophy and the history of his time. This new and complete translation will be valuable to all students of early China.

Rafe de Crespigny

This is a gem: a complete translation of Wang Fu’s searing and comprehensive indictment of how Eastern Han society has betrayed its Confucian ideals. By physically separating passages written in parallel prose from those in a looser contemporary style, the translators masterfully display the sophisticated texture and logic of the work.

Keith Knapp