Publisher's Synopsis
Plant has a very minority position in the world of fables, but in this world it is one of the most abundant creature. For this reason this book is emphasized and dedicated to the plant world. Here in this book the term botanical used in a very broad sense. As long as the story is related to plant which related to man like farmer and wine maker, or materials like wine, cake, wood and so on are considered and selected. It does not matter whether the plant plays major or minor roles in the story. In review of literature history, the Chinese fables is not very well known in the Western world. It is hoped that this book will fill a little gap, since Chinese fables has a very long history and is one of the three cradles of fable stories: China, India and Greece. This is a book about classical Chinese botanical fables from about 2500 BC to 1880 AD. It contains only selected 118 fables from I Jing, Shi Jing (Book of Songs), Shun Hai Jing (Book of Mountain and Sea). And the fables by famous Chinese politicians like Guan Zi and famous diplomat Yang Zi are included. One also can find fables by famous Chinese philosophers like Kong Zi (Confucius) and, Meng Zi, (Yu Jia), Mo Zi (Mo Jia), Zhuang Zi (Tao Jia), Han Fei Zi (School of Legalism, Fu Jia) and Lu Bu wei (Za Jia). This book also includes fables from the book of famous historians like Si Ma Quian (Historical Records, Shi Ji) and Si Ma Guang (Zi Zhi Tong Jain). It also introduced many famous poets and writers of Tong, Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing dynasties and their botanical fables. It is a book of history of Chinese literature, especially a history of Chinese classical fables. AUTHOR BIO: PETER K. CHEN was professor of Botany and Microbiology of Georgetown University for 33 years. He grew up in China and Taiwan, In 1955 came to United States of America to study Bacteriology and Plant Pathology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. After he retired in 1996 he became interested in fables from his father who was a published au
