Cheng Xiaoqing. (Courtesy of bibliophile Wasby/Photo)
The republic of China detective novels are diverse and colorful, among which the works of writers who are recognized as the top seats are none other than Cheng Xiaoqing and his "Hawthorne Detective" series.
Zheng Yimei, a writer and scholar born in the late Qing Dynasty, recalled: "At that time, there were many people who wrote detective novels, but no one could compare with him (author's note: pointing to Cheng Xiaoqing). During the Republic of China, newspapers and periodicals or critics introduced other detective novelists, often using Cheng Xiaoqing as a benchmark. For example, the authors of the "Rogue Lu Pinqi Case", Sun Yihong and Cheng Xiaoqing, are called "one green and one red" in order to mark Sun Hong's position as the second best position in the field of detective novels in the Republic of China; another famous detective novelist of the Republic of China, Lu Yuan'an, who was elected and affirmed, also said that "Cheng Xiaoqing is famous for the Hawthorne detective case, but Lu Yuan'an is famous for Li Fei's detective case"; and Zhao Yuanfang, who has taken a different approach in the style of "funny detective", is considered to be "his novel thinks that the detective is the best at itself and can fight with Cheng Xiaoqing."
So, with what is Cheng Xiaoqing?
Cheng Xiaoqing's detective novels were mostly adapted into movies during the Republic of China period, and he himself participated in some screenwriting work. Pictured here are stills from the film "Hawthorne the Great Detective" (2019), based on his novel. (Infographic/Figure)
"Hawthorne powder" in the Republic of China period
How to tell if a detective novelist is popular with readers? In simple terms, there are two reference criteria, one is the sales of his works, and the other is the reader's love for his portrayal of the detective.
The former is a reference to Agatha Christie, the "queen of detective fiction", a very popular folk saying that her works have sold more than 2 billion copies worldwide, second only to the Bible and Shakespeare's plays. The film and television adaptation of the "Grandma" detective novel has not been broken, and its "Massacre on the Nile" was recently adapted into a movie and released on February 19, 2022. Another example is the Japanese writer Keigo Higashino, who is jokingly called "best-selling jun", who walked into many bookstores in China, and his works were generally indispensable in the gold display area at the door.
Cheng Xiaoqing's novel "Horror Living Drama" (Hawthorne Detective Pocket Series No. 6) book shadow. (Courtesy of bibliophile Wasby/Photo)
From the 1920s to the 1940s, Cheng Xiaoqing's "Hawthorne Detective" series of novels were published in more than 50 Republic of China newspapers and magazines such as Saturday, Declaration, and Detective World, and were published or republished in more than 70 single editions. Among them, from 1941 to 1946, the "Hawthorne Detective Complete Works Pocket Series" published by the World Book Company successively published the collection of novels in this series, a full set of 30 volumes, including 73 detective novels, a total of about 2.8 million words, which can be called the "largest project" for the creation and publication of local detective novels in China during the Republic of China period. These data may not be so prominent compared with "Grandma" and "Best-selling Jun", but in the creation of detective novels in the Republic of China, the vast majority are "one book writers", and there are only five or six selected works of writers with relatively good grades, and Cheng Xiaoqing is already an absolute peak in them.
Cheng Xiaoqing's "Hawthorne Detective" series of novels can occupy a first-class publishing platform and publishing resources, which is inseparable from the love and pursuit of readers at that time.
To what extent did readers in the Republic of China love the "Hawthorne Detective" case? Just one example. Cheng Xiaoqing's good friend and another important detective novelist during the Republic of China period, Zhang Biwu, once wrote a "Hawthorne Detective" "Fan Novel" "Double Male Fighting Wisdom", which, as its name suggests, mainly writes the story of Detective Hawthorne vs. "Rogue" Luo Ping (similar to today's famous Detective Conan vs. Strange Thief Kidd). Readers at that time read it and felt that Zhang Biwu had written Hawthorne too stupidly, so they jointly wrote a letter to the editor-in-chief of the magazine, Zhou Shuangjuan, to express their dissatisfaction.
At the end of the novel series, Ropin is captured alive by Hawthorne and imprisoned. This ending has something to do with the reader's strong demands. To be fair, in Zhang Biwu's "Tale of the Fighting Wisdom of the Two Heroes", Detective Hawthorne is not described as useless, it can only be said that he and Luo Ping are fighting with each other, and there are victories and losses, but the "Hawthorne fans" at that time still can't stand the novel's half-"denigration" of the "detective" in their hearts, so there is a letter from the reader in the above article.
This story is reminiscent of Conan Doyle's original writing of Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty's death, originally intended to end the series of novels, but the reader's "urging" voice was too strong, so that Conan Doyle had to re-write and write a series of stories after the "Return of Sherlock Holmes".
The shadow of "Atomic Thief" in the name of Cheng Xiaoqing. (Infographic/Figure)
The "golden signboard" in the eyes of pirate booksellers
Cheng Xiaoqing, who had such a popularity at that time, not only created a large number of detective novels and published many works, but also published novels with false trusts and misappropriations of his name. It is not difficult to imagine that in the Republic of China period, when intellectual property rights and book copyright protection were not strictly regulated, in the face of Cheng Xiaoqing's detective novel "golden signboard", how could some "unscrupulous booksellers" not want to try to find a way to mix up and gain a benefit from it.
For example, in November 1947, the Shanghai Fuxin Book Company published two "detective novels", "Atomic Thief" and "Masquerade Girl", both signed "Cheng Xiaoqing". From the article "Cheng Xiaoqing Controls the Impostor Of The Merchant" (Fei Bao, March 4, 1948), it can be seen that these two books were not actually written by Cheng Xiaoqing, but the bookseller used their names fraudulently in order to sell well. This situation is somewhat similar to the various unknown martial arts novels commonly signed in the 1990s by "Quanyong", "Jin Tang", "Gu Yue", "Gu Longxin" and "Jin Yongxin".
At that time, Cheng Xiaoqing himself discovered this situation in time and sued the infringer in court. However, in the "pseudo-Manchurian" areas previously controlled by the Japanese, Cheng Xiaoqing's rights protection whip was beyond his reach. A variety of "rare" detective novels signed "By Cheng Xiaoqing" have been published in the "Pseudo-Manchuria" region, such as "Tiger's Den Love Wave", "Man in Gray", "Half a Pin", etc., most of which can be confirmed as pirated copies. According to the bibliophile Wasby, the book was originally supposed to be Tao Xiaoqiu's "Headless Thief", which was published by the Shanghai Dazhong Book Company in 1923 and later pseudo-commissioned as Cheng Xiaoqing's work. Cheng Xiaoqing did write a novel under the title of "Man in Grey" published by the "Pseudo-Manchu" Puzzle Bookstore, but the book published by the Puzzle Bookstore was not on the topic, and the cover was printed "The Man in Gray", but the text inside was another work of Cheng Xiaoqing, "Gunshots on a Rainy Night". In this regard, it can be basically judged that the publisher took the inside text of the novel "Rainy Night Gunshots" and reposted the "pickpocket book" on the cover of "Gray Man", which is usually to deceive readers into repeated purchases.
In addition to the continuous publication, reprinting and piracy of the book market, Cheng Xiaoqing also attracted widespread attention from the film industry at that time. Many of his detective novels were adapted into movies during the Republic of China period, and Cheng Xiaoqing himself also participated in the writing or adaptation of many of them, such as "Shadow on the Window", "Dancing Girl's Blood", "Jiangnan Yan", "Rainy Night Gunshot", etc., but unfortunately, these old film films are now scattered, and today people can only imagine the world of light and shadow on the screen and the image of Hawthorne on the screen at that time through some residual film scripts and advertisements, stills and other film peripherals.
Detective fiction "all-rounder"
In addition to the creators of detective novels and film scripts, Cheng Xiaoqing also has many identities as detective novel translators, magazine editors, critics, writing teachers, etc., and can be called the "all-round player" of detective novels in the Republic of China period. During the Republic of China period, Cheng Xiaoqing participated in the translation and publication of the Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes (Shanghai Zhonghua Bookstore, 1916, 12 volumes) and the Complete Works of Yasen Luoping (Shanghai Dadong Bookstore, 1925, 24 volumes), and also undertook the organization, planning and main translation of "Punctuation Vernacular Sherlock Holmes Detective Collection" (Shanghai World Bookstore, 1926, 12 volumes). Afterwards, Cheng Xiaoqing supplemented the translation of Sherlock Holmes's detective novels that were not included in this "Encyclopedia", and in 1934 launched a "hardcover supplementary version" of the book, which was also the first truly complete translation of the "Sherlock Holmes Detective Complete Collection" in China. In addition, Cheng Xiaoqing has heavily combined European and American "golden age" detective novelists such as Ellery Queen, Austin Freeman, Leslie Charteris, and S. Dyne. Representative works by S. Van Dine, Earl Biggers, Agatha Christie and others have been translated, and the total number of detective novels published has exceeded the scale of his "Hawthorne Detective" series of novels.
Therefore, Cheng Xiaoqing is not only the "first person to create" detective novels in the Republic of China, but also the "first person to translate" detective novels in the Republic of China.
In addition, Cheng Xiaoqing has served as the editor, consultant or editor-in-chief of various Republic of China detective novel magazines such as "Detective World", "New Detective", "Red Book", etc., and has written a number of the most important detective novel reviews or theoretical texts in the Republic of China period, such as "The Position of Detective Novels in Literature", "Many Aspects of Detective Novels", and "From "Turning a Blind Eye" to Detective Novels". In an admissions advertisement at that time called "Admissions and Regulations of Shanghai Novel Specialized School" (1923), it was recorded that this "Shanghai Novel Specialized School" had "Detective Fiction Specialist and Other Doors", and the teacher in charge of this subject was Cheng Xiaoqing.
It is now impossible to see the specific content or lecture notes of Professor Cheng Xiaoqing's "Detective Fiction Specialist", and even whether this Shanghai Novel College has ever been put into operation needs further examination. If this school and related courses really existed, then Cheng Xiaoqing can be said to be the earliest teacher of "creative writing" in Detective Fiction in China.
Former residence of Cheng Xiaoqing (No. 23, North Gate, Wangxing Bridge, Suzhou). (Battle Jade Ice/Photo)
How did Cheng Xiaoqing become Cheng Xiaoqing?
As the "first person" of the Republic of China detective novel, how did Cheng Xiaoqing develop step by step and achieve many achievements later?
First of all, of course, it is inseparable from his love for detective novels since childhood. According to Cheng Xiaoqing himself, he embarked on the road of creating detective novels, and was deeply influenced by Conan Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes" series of novels. Like most detective novel authors at that time, Cheng Xiaoqing's literary career also had the growth and evolution from the reader of detective novels to the author: "This is because I have been reading detective novels since I was a child, and I remember that when I was twelve or thirteen years old, I accidentally got a Sherlock Holmes detective, I read it several times with half-understanding, although I felt that Holmes was terrible, but at the same time I had an incredible feeling, and I was reluctant to throw away the book and not read it." Later, I increased my age, and the scope of reading detective novels was also expanded. In the third year of the Republic of China, the Zhonghua Bookstore published a complete collection of Sherlock Holmes detectives. Because of the introduction of the old friend of the skinny crane, he taught me to help him translate several articles, about 200,000 words. I felt that the plot in the book was mysterious enough not only to entertain, but also enough to make people's senses, so my interest in detective novels became more and more intense, and the text also focused on this way."
In addition to being an interest driver for readers and translators, writing detective fiction requires a lot of hard work to design the case and the cracking process tightly. Cheng Xiaoqing's old friend Zheng Yimei once praised Cheng's creation: "Xiaoqing's thoughts are dense, better than ordinary people, when he compiles a detective, he must first construct a plot map." The plot is from A to B, from B to propylene, the sketch is complete, further seek twists and turns, between A and B, B and propylene add some small twists and turns, the ability to peel off the cocoon and extract the silk, so that people can not guess, and the case is solved, and then suddenly realized. ”
In this regard, Cheng Xiaoqing also clearly wrote: "For example, to write a complex case, to arrange four clues, only one of them can pass to the hu who decides to send out the truth, and the other three are false lines that lead to the wrong way, then it must be Mr. Laobao's god." Because the art of the structure of the detective novel is really like a maze, the author's nib must bring the power of attraction to introduce the reader to the core of the maze, the twists and turns can not find a way out for a while, and when the end is over, suddenly open the secret door of the maze, so that the reader suddenly understands, that can be counted as a thing. In order to arrange this maze, it is natural that there are several seemingly non-passing lines, and this line needs auxiliary figures in the detective case, such as Bao Lang, the police officer, the detective chief, and so on. (The Many Faces of Detective Fiction)
This kind of intertwining of false and real clues in the design of the plot of the novel, and the ingenuity contained in it, is exactly what Cheng Xiaoqing has talked about for many years of creative experience.
It is worth mentioning that Cheng Xiaoqing, who has translated hundreds of European and American detective novels, did not have the experience of staying abroad like many literati of the Republic of China at that time, and his English was completely self-taught in China. According to Zheng Yimei, "In 1917, he (Cheng Xiaoqing) moved from Shanghai to Suzhou and taught at the affiliated middle school of Soochow University in Tiancizhuang. The school is set up by Westerners, with Wu language department attached, specializing in teaching Westerners to learn Chinese language, and meeting with American teacher Xu Anzhi to teach each other English and Chinese. Cheng Xiaoqing also devoted himself to the study and research of detective science and criminal psychology, and "was taught criminal psychology by correspondence from a university in the United States, which is the academic that detectives should have." From Cheng Xiaoqing's detective novels, it can be seen that he had a relatively deep understanding of the most cutting-edge criminal investigation methods in the West at that time, as well as the police system, psychoanalysis, criminal psychology, and abnormal psychology.
From juvenile interest to foreign language learning, from the brain racking during creation to the spare efforts of translation, coupled with the continuous "charging" of knowledge in various related disciplines, Cheng Xiaoqing finally became Cheng Xiaoqing and became a veritable "first person in the Detective Novel of the Republic of China".
(Thanks to the bibliophile Mr. Wasby for providing the relevant Republic of China detective novel book collection and materials for the writing of this article)
(The author is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Chinese, Fudan University)
Southern Weekend Contributing Writer Zhan Yubing