Wasby (Zhang Jinghua)
Wasby, a researcher of genre literature, has been focusing on the collection and collation of detective novels in the late Qing Republic of China for several years, and he has formulated a private rescue plan for these documents from the initial period of Chinese reasoning - "Republic of China Reasoning Collection". The specific method, in his own words, is "in his lifetime, collect as much as he can, and sort out as much as he can." The result of this project is the series of "Collected Remains of Modern Chinese Detective Novels", which is being painstakingly and slowly sought. In an interview with the Shanghai Review of Books, he talked about the origin and process of the plan.
What is the origin of your collection and sorting of detective novels in the late Qing Republic, can you talk about it?
Wasby: The first series of four books in my "Collection of Modern Chinese Detective Novels" series is the most noteworthy of Mr. Zhao Yuanfan's "Hu Xian Detective Case" - it was because of this book that I fell into the big pit of detective novels in the Republic of China.
I originally thought that the genre of humorous reasoning as a mystery novel gradually emerged after the works of Japanese humorous reasoning master Atsushi Higashikawa were introduced to China. In fact, as early as the late Qing Republican period, "funny detective" novels with humorous and funny elements appeared. I remember that in early 2016, the reasoning writer Shi Chen Brother was invited by me to write a recommended preface to our mutual friend's humorous mystery novel "Officer Ji's Nonsensical Reasoning Incident Book 3" (Changjiang Press, May 2016), in which he mentioned the "Hu Xian Detective Case" series by the Republic of China detective novelist Zhao Yuanfan, saying that the "funny detective" he wrote was a "humorous reasoning" during the Republic of China. I was thinking of writing a review article about "humorous reasoning" novels, and on a whim, I went to look up information about Mr. Zhao and his detective novels. After going through all kinds of documents one by one, I knew that it turned out that the "Hu Xian Detective Case" series was very famous in the detective novel industry of the Republic of China, and the great detective Hu Xian was widely known to readers at that time as a typical "failed detective". In addition to Zhao Yuanmad, writers such as Xu Zhuodu and Zhu Qiujing (masterpiece "Confused Detective Case") are also good at creating "funny detective" novels.
Zhao Yuan is crazy
I think that in order to systematically study contemporary Chinese "humorous reasoning" novels, we should dig out as much of the source of this genre - the "funny detective" novels of the late Qing Republic of China - and study them systematically. However, the number of detective novels in the late Qing Republic was too large, and there was no complete bibliography of these works. Thinking about it, I plan to do it myself and compile a detailed and complete "Inventory of Original Detective Novels of the Late Qing Republic", and try to search for and rescue those detective novels of the late Qing Republic that are constantly forgotten by history.
In the beginning, it was really difficult to gather source documents. Let me first make sure that there are eight articles in the "Detective Hu" series. Then, with the help of Liang Qingsan, a science fiction writer and late Qing dynasty science fiction researcher, scanned versions of the first six articles were downloaded through the "National Press Index"; Subsequently, I found the eighth "The Devil of the Girl" in the third volume of "Selected Chinese Detective Novels in a Hundred Years (1908-2011)" (edited by Ren Xiang, Beijing Normal University Press, October 2012); Only the seventh article, "Lupin's Triumph", has not been found in full because the newspaper "New Shanghai" in the collection of the Shanghai Library is incomplete. At that time, I had not yet begun to collect the original detective novels of the Republic of China, and I did not go to Confucius Old Books to search for books on the Internet (so I missed a lot of cheap detective novels of the late Qing Republic of China), so I could only ask Brother Wang Zheng (author of "Come to the Human Wesley: Ni Kuang and Me" and "One Hundred and Eight Generals by Ni Kuang: Novel Character Records") who had considerable experience in online book search to help me find books. As a result, he found the book in a used bookstore called "Ji Yuntang" on the 7788 Collection Network, which specializes in thrift goods. Unfortunately, the store was closed at that time, and he had to leave a message to the owner on the Internet, but he had no news.
Finally, thanks to the fact that the Shanghai Library also has this book, with the assistance of my friend Ji Shuangyu, I paid to copy the entire single copy of "Lupin's Victory", which was purchased on July 12, 2016. Originally, I thought that if I couldn't find "Lupin's Victory", the Republic of China would have been settled, but the unexpected joy fell from the sky. In mid-February 2017, I suddenly found that "Jiyuntang" was open again and could also be purchased, so I quickly pocketed "Lupin's Victory".
Zhao Yuanmad's cover of "Detective Hu Xian Case: Lu Ping's Victory"
My fate with Mr. Zhao Yuanmad does not stop there. On July 5, 2016, I bought my first Republican collection book "Funny Detective Collection", which officially started my career of collecting and sorting out detective novels in the late Qing Republic. The "synopsis" of this book should have been written by Mr. Zhao, explaining the main reasons why funny detective novels were popular with readers during the Republican period, but the table of contents and the text did not indicate which famous author of each novel was, and I did some research with the help of friends to confirm that the twelve "funny detective" novels included in the book should all come from the magazine "Detective World", which published twenty-four issues and ceased publication.
Zhao Yuan frantically edited the book shadow of "Funny Detective Collection"
Mr. Fan Boqun, a popular literature researcher, once titled the postscript to "The History of Modern Chinese Popular Literature (Illustrated Edition)" (Peking University Press, January 2007) as "Mi Zhao Ji", describing the bitterness and joy of searching for the cover of the inaugural issue of the popular literature journal of the Republic of China and the portrait of the writer. When I wrote the "Afterword" for the compilation of "Detective Hu Xian", I paid tribute to Mr. Fan and named it "Mi Zhao Ji".
How did you specifically collect and organize detective novels in the late Qing Republic?
Wasby: I actually wanted to do science fiction criticism at the beginning, but later found that there are many science fiction researchers in China, but there are not many detective mystery novel researchers, and there are even fewer data collection and collation of relevant works in China. There is not much more me in the field of science fiction, no less than me, or go to pioneering work. I started writing reviews for domestic original suspense mystery novels when I was in college, and after graduation, I joined a publishing company and still keep an eye on this field. However, there is a big problem in researching and commenting on contemporary suspense mystery fiction writers and works: it is difficult to get rid of the influence of human feelings - as soon as you praise, others will say that you are deliberately praised, and when you criticize, people will say that you are deliberately smearing. The study of detective novels of the late Qing Republic does not have this problem. In this regard, I have a sense of mission, a lot of information, especially physical objects, if not taken the initiative to rescue, over time, may not be found in another ten or twenty years. As a researcher outside the college, I do not sit on the convenience of database query like the academic school, and if I need to check the information, I often have to find some friends from colleges and universities to help. I take the Confucius Old Books Network as a "position", according to all kinds of bibliographic materials, go to search one by one, if you find the physical object, quickly buy it back, at least first do the archive, find the opportunity in the future, and then organize and publish, so that more ordinary readers can read the stories of that year - although it may seem quite naïve now, but it can also witness how local authors worked hard to create as early as the initial period of Chinese mystery novels. Taking a step back, even if the reading value of these works is not so great, the historical value of the records of the customs and customs of that era and society is also very large. I have made up my mind to collect as much as I can in my lifetime, and I will organize as much as I can. Individual strength is limited, and what can be done is a little.
What are the characteristics of the writers and works included in the published "Collection of Modern and Modern Chinese Detective Novels" series, and can you talk about them?
WARSBY: Let me take the first series as an example.
The first book in the first series, which is the book number 01, is Lu Zean's masterpiece "Li Fei's Detective Case". Lu Ze'an is a detective novelist with the same name as Cheng Xiaoqing and Sun Yihong in the history of detective novels in the Republic of China, similar to the "Big Three" we are used to saying today, Li Fei's image is also very interesting, he is a "scholarly detective", which can be described as unique. Cheng Xiaoqing and Sun Yihong, two detective novelists, have the highest influence and popularity in the Republic of China, and after 1949, only the detective novels written by the two of them have been republished - probably in the eighties of the last century, the People's Publishing House and the Jilin Culture and History Publishing House respectively published a set of thirteen-volume and ten-volume Cheng Xiaoqing's "Hawthorne Detective Collection", these two sets of books seemed to be relatively close to the "complete works" at that time, and Sun Yihong scattered a few books. Lu Ze'an's writing of detective novels belongs to playing tickets, his "main business" is actually classical literature research and opera research, and he is also a film screenwriter and director, and detective novels only occupy a very short period of time in his creative career. Before he wrote "Detective Li Fei's Case Collection", he watched a lot of imported detective movies, and after watching it, he wrote a "film drama novel" according to the plot of the movie, and then published, about six or seven novels were written in this way, and at that time China did not pay much attention to copyright. In this way, he accumulated some experience in the creation of detective novels, and he wrote "Detective Li Fei's Case Collection", in which many bridges can be seen to be influenced by detective movies, which is very graphic.
Lu Zean's detective "shadow drama novel" "Red Glove" book shadow
Cover of "Detective Li Fei's Case" (Source: Shanghai Library)
"Detective Li Fei's Case Collection" book shadow
The second book is Zhao Yuanmad's "Detective Hu Xian Case". At that time, most writers mainly imitated Sherlock Holmes and Yasin Robin, and Sun Hong's Rogue Lupin was the imitation of Yasin Robin, which is a more orthodox way of detective fiction, and as I said earlier, "Detective Hu" is to add humorous and funny elements to detective novels. Zhao Yuanmad himself is a bit cynical, he said that detective novels are too serious, or hip-hop fun. Hu Xian is a "failed detective" who says that nine out of ten cases have failed, saying that all detectives are only willing to record successful cases, but they are willing to record failed cases. This kind of funny detective actually has a bit of anti-reasoning and anti-detective feeling, and there are many such works in Europe and the United States, and "Trent's Last Case" is a representative. Zhao felt that he would definitely not be able to write the process and Sun two when he wrote an orthodox detective novel, so he found another way, and the funny detective's case did not need to be tricky, and he could attract readers with funny content. I myself usually love to watch comedies, study humorous reasoning, or enter the pit by "Detective Hu", which is inseparable from my own preferences.
"Detective Hu Xian Case" book shadow
The third book is Nanfeng Pavilion Chief's "Chinese Detective: Luo Shifu". Hawthorne, portrayed by Cheng Xiaoqing, is regarded as the Republican version of "Oriental Sherlock Holmes", then, before that, Luo Shifu written by Nanfeng Pavilion can be called the late Qing version of "Oriental Sherlock Holmes". It is clearly mentioned in the novel that the name of "Shifu" is "taking the meaning of Sherlock Holmes", and the author adopts a typical "detective + assistant" model, and Detective Luo is also proficient in transfiguration, fighting and "physiology, physiology, chemistry, psychology, etc.", which is like a copy of Sherlock Holmes in late Qing China. Little is known about who the author "Nanfeng Pavilion Chief" is, only that he is a member of the Shanghai Global News Agency, but his life is unknown, I tried to do research, but no results were achieved, so I can only leave it to later exploration.
"Chinese Detective: Luo Shifu" book shadow
Illustration of "Chinese Detective: Luo Shifu" when it was serialized in the late Qing Dynasty pictorial "Picture Daily"
The fourth is "Liu Bannong's Detective Novel Collection". The publication of Liu Bannong's collection of detective novels was an accident. I saw Mr. Wei Shaochang, a popular novel researcher of the Republic of China, mention Zhang Tianyi (Zhang Wuyi) and Liu Bannong (Bannong) in the early literary careers of popular fiction writing in "I Look at the Mandarin Duck Butterfly School" (Shanghai Bookstore Press, October 2015), and I learned that they also wrote detective novels. The "Liu Bannong Detective Novel Collection" I compiled mainly includes Liu Bannong's vernacular short detective novel "Wig" written under the pseudonyms "Bannong" and "Ban", the "Catch Fast Old King" series of literary short detective novels "Dagger" and "Tam'e", and "Sherlock Holmes" imitation "Sherlock Holmes Failure" (a total of five cases). While writing detective novels, he also translated many detective novels, such as co-translating "The Complete Detective Case of Sherlock Holmes" (Zhonghua Bookstore, May 1916) with Cheng Xiaoqing, Zhou Xiaojuan, Yan Duhe and others, he was responsible for translating the second case "Buddha National Treasure" (now translated as "Four Signatures"), and he also wrote a "Ba" for the entire "Complete Collection", pointing out that detective novels have a certain role in scientific enlightenment. This idea is in line with the late Qing Dynasty's idea of the novel as a tool to "open up the wisdom of the people", but later Liu Bannong regarded detective novels as "negative novels". As for Zhang Tianyi's works, it is a pity that his descendants did not authorize me, I guess it may be because Mr. Zhang is a new literary writer, and his descendants believe that detective novels are inconsistent with this historical status. These detective novels were written by Zhang Tianyi when he was in middle school, when he wrote a number of popular novels, of which more than a dozen were detective novels, mainly the "Xu Changyun Detective Case" series, which also imitated Sherlock Holmes's routine, and now it seems that it is actually quite well written.
Illustration of Liu Bannong's "Dagger" included in the ninth volume of "Novel Famous Paintings" (Ding Wei Painting)
Liu Bannong's translation of "Sherlock Holmes Detective Case", the second case "Buddha National Treasure" (now translated "Four Signatures")
"Liu Bannong's Detective Novels" book shadow
Dadong Bookstore's "Detective World" book shadow, including four articles of "Xu Changyun Detective Case"
In addition, the novels have their own characteristics. For example, Zhang Biwu's "The Tale of Two Heroes Fighting Wisdom". Zhang is one of the main detective novelists during the Republic of China, and his representative work is the "Family Detective Song Wuqi Detective Case" series. In addition, he is the author of several articles "Private Detective Wang Xiagong". He is a friend of Cheng Xiaoqing, and "The Tale of Two Heroes Fighting Wisdom" is also a "Hawthorne fanfiction", and the author said in the foreword that his original intention was to deliberately create a "Oriental Yasin Robin" who can "show each other's skills by "fighting with each other and showing each other". Another example is Zhu Qiujing's "Confused Detective Case". This is also the "funny detective" novel of the Republic of China, which portrays a "failed detective" named Bai Mang (taking the homonym of "white busy").
The original book shadow of "The Tale of Two Heroes Fighting Wisdom"
"The Tale of Two Heroes Fighting Wisdom" book shadow
The original book shadow of "Confused Detective Case"
"Confused Detective Case" book shadow
You study detective novels and seem to be greatly influenced by Japanese scholars, can you talk about it?
Wasby: The most important influence of Japanese scholars on me is their rigorous approach to scholarship. Their research is first based on physical objects, rather than copying second-hand materials back and forth, as some domestic scholars do, neither checking the publication time, edition, nor the title of the catalog. The Japanese scholar I admire the most is Mr. Teruo Tarumoto, who attaches great importance to physical materials, and many of the materials in his articles are pictures of books or copyright pages carefully combed through the Confucius Old Book Network. His enlightenment to me is that if you do not pay attention to physical objects and do not have historical materials as a basis, many conclusions are simply unreliable. For example, many Chinese materials were written in 1914 when the first article of Cheng Xiaoqing's "Detective Hawthorne" was published, probably because the most widely circulated book by Mr. Fan Boqun said that it was 1914, and a Japanese scholar found the physical object in 1916, two years behind. Many people think that Cheng Xiaoqing was the earliest creator of detective novels in China, in fact, he only began to write the first one in 1916, which cannot be said to be very early, and before that, there were some authors who were earlier than him. Therefore, it is still the same sentence: we must pay attention to physical objects, which is the basis of research.
The shadow of Yumesheng's "Funny Detective" was given to Wasby by Teruo Tarumoto
Are there any follow-up research and collation plans?
Wasby: I may compile and publish part of Zheng Xiaoping's "Female Snitch Oriole" series in the third volume of the "Collected Novels of Modern Chinese Detective Novels" series, which was serialized in the Shanghai "Blue Book" magazine in the late forties of the last century, and then the Global Book Magazine company that published this magazine moved to Hong Kong, and this series began to be serialized again in Hong Kong, which was very popular, and in the fifties probably dozens of single books were published in Hong Kong and adapted into movies. The previous serialization in Shanghai magazine was nine, and I plan to sort out these nine. The characteristics of this batch of detective novels are that the protagonists are female characters, and they also have a bit of a rogue feel, and there are some spy elements - spy novels were also particularly popular in the forties and fifties.
The original book shadow of "Female Snitch Oriole"
In addition, I also have an idea: try to collect some detective novels of the late Qing Republic of China with good quality, complete covers and copyright pages, scan them into pictures in the future, and compile a collection of illustrated materials, called "Late Qing Republic Detective Novel Book Video". If there is an opportunity to publish such a book, it will be much richer than a separate inventory. Because just looking at the pictures actually don't know how big the book folio is, some book folios are very small, only thirty-two, or even sixty-four, which is the kind of very small pocket book. This is one of the reasons why I keep collecting physical objects, and when it comes time to make a catalog, I can measure the size of the book and match it with the same size as possible, which will be very intuitive.