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Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio

Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (聊斋志异, Liaozhai zhiyi) is a collection of nearly 500 short tales written in classical Chinese by Pu Songling (蒲松龄, 1640–1715). It is the best-known book of Chinese ghost stories: fox spirits, ghosts, demons, dragons and an underworld run like a government office, with judges, clerks and registers.

Updated November 2, 2026

Who was Pu Songling?

Pu Songling was a scholar from Zichuan, in Shandong province, who failed the higher imperial exams and spent his life as a country teacher. As a young man he placed first in a series of local examinations, but he was rejected at the higher levels. Apart from a few months assisting a county magistrate, he worked as a private tutor. He received the gongsheng (“tribute student”) degree only at 71, as an honour for his writing rather than for passing an exam.

How did he collect the tales? In his own preface, dated 1679 in Herbert Giles’s translation, Pu says that he got people to write down what they told him, then shaped it into stories, and that friends “from all quarters” sent him material. A popular anecdote has him trading tea for stories at a roadside stall; his preface says nothing of the kind, so treat it as legend. It is also unclear how much he collected and how much he invented.

How big is the Liaozhai, and when was it written?

The Liaozhai holds nearly 500 tales, written over several decades. Britannica counts 431, largely complete by 1679, with stories added as late as 1707; the full Chinese text on Wikisource, in twelve juan (books), lists 496. The book circulated in handwritten copies, and the earliest surviving printed edition appeared in Hangzhou in 1766, about fifty years after Pu’s death. That edition left some stories out, which is one reason counts differ.

Chinese mythology creatures in the Liaozhai: foxes, ghosts and dragons

The tales are full of fox spirits and ghosts, and the book’s popular Chinese name is 鬼狐傳, “Tales of Ghosts and Foxes”.

  • Fox spirits (狐). Foxes take human form, often as pretty young women. Britannica notes that in Pu’s stories fox spirits became, for the first time in Chinese fiction, humanized and likable. In “Lianxiang” (蓮香), a fox and a ghost visit the same young man, and the fox tells him, in Giles’s words: “Some foxes are harmless; no devils are.” More on their history in The nine-tailed fox in Chinese mythology.
  • Ghosts and demons. In “The Painted Skin” (畫皮, Huapi), a man takes in a runaway girl and then sees through the window a green-faced devil painting a human skin, which it puts on like a coat.
  • Dragons and water spirits. In “The Princess of West Lake” (西湖主), a young secretary on Dongting Lake saves a creature shot with an arrow. It was the consort of the lake’s lord, and her family later repays him with marriage to her daughter.

How does the underworld work in these Chinese ghost stories?

In Chinese folk religion the underworld is a bureaucracy, and the Liaozhai treats it as one. The ruler is King Yama (閻羅王, Yanluo Wang). In the popular scheme of the Ten Courts, each court is ruled by one of the Ten Kings (Yama presides over the fifth), and souls are sent from court to court for judgment. The Book of Life and Death (生死簿, shengsi bu) records every lifespan, and judges (判官, panguan) keep it.

Pu’s tales show this machinery at work, and often going wrong:

  • In “Sins of a Monk” (僧孽), a man named Zhang dies suddenly and is led before the King of the Underworld, who checks the register, finds the ghost runner has taken the wrong man, and sends him home.
  • In “The Censor in Purgatory” (Giles’s title), an official walks into a cave, finds the Ten Courts with a judge seated in each, and is shown the day of his own death in the register of Life and Death.
  • In “Judge Lu” (陸判), a student, on a dare, carries off the statue of an underworld judge from a temple of the Ten Courts. The judge befriends him and swaps his heart for a cleverer one, and he starts passing exams.

Why do the stories mock officials and exams?

Pu failed the exams for most of his life, and many tales take aim at examiners and corrupt officials, in this world and the next. The very first tale, “Examination for the Post of City God” (考城隍; Giles: “Guardian Angel”), has a scholar summoned to an exam set by the gods. In “Smelling Essays” (司文郎), a blind monk judges essays by the smell of their smoke and declares he may be blind in the eyes, but the examiners are blind in the nose. In “Xi Fangping” (席方平), a son goes down to the underworld after his father’s enemy bribes its officers; when the god Erlang finally hears the case, the accused include the King of the Underworld himself. In “The Office of Examining Abuses” (考弊司), a ghost king cuts flesh from each scholar’s thigh by custom, unless the scholar pays a bribe.

Which Liaozhai tales are most famous?

“Nie Xiaoqian” and “The Painted Skin” are the best known, largely through film.

TaleWhat happensOn screen
“Nie Xiaoqian” (聶小倩); Giles: “The Magic Sword”A girl who died at eighteen is forced by a demon to lure travellers at a ruined temple, until the upright scholar Ning Caichen helps her escape.A Chinese Ghost Story (1987), directed by Ching Siu-tung, produced by Tsui Hark
“The Painted Skin” (畫皮)A demon wearing a painted human skin tears out a man’s heart; a Taoist priest hunts it down.Films by King Hu (1992) and Gordon Chan (2008)

Giles vs Minford vs Sondergard: which translation should you read?

Start with Giles if you want a free selection, and read Sondergard if you want every tale.

TranslatorTitle and publisherTalesNotes
Herbert A. GilesStrange Stories from a Chinese Studio, Thos. De La Rue, London, 1880 (2 vols)164The first English translation of a large selection. Free on Project Gutenberg. Giles left out sexual content.
John MinfordStrange Tales from a Chinese Studio, Penguin Classics, 2006104Modern selection with an introduction by the translator.
Sidney L. SondergardStrange Tales from Liaozhai, Jain Publishing, 2008–2014 (6 vols)CompleteBilled as the first complete English translation.

Read it as a story

Two Comicwell series are drawn from tales by Pu Songling, and a third is a ghost story set in San Francisco.

  • A Debt of Foxes (manhwa-style comic) and Book One, the novel, are drawn from tales by Pu Songling. Lin Ming is the only living clerk in the Bureau of the Unrecorded, an office of the dead, and owes fourteen lines for striking her father’s name from the death roll by mistake. Her surety is Nine, a fox with perfect manners and no line in any register.
  • A Debt of Dragons (manhwa-style comic) and the novel, also drawn from tales by Pu Songling. Hong Mei poles the ferry at Willow Crossing and pulls an arrow out of a golden carp: the Eighth Prince of the lake’s dragons, bound to her lamp until he saves her life.
  • The Unquiet City (comic) and the novel The Dead Must Be Disclosed. Callum Rourke, a contractor who quietly clears the dead out of the city’s old buildings, is bound by a job to Yip Sau-lin, a ghost who died in the 1870s.

The first 20 comic chapters are free, and the first 10 novel chapters are free.

More legends: The nine-tailed fox in Chinese mythology, The Legend of the White Snake, Wuxia vs xianxia.

Questions

Is Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio the same book as Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio?
Yes. Both are English titles for Pu Songling's Liaozhai zhiyi (聊斋志异). "Strange Stories" is the title Herbert Giles used in 1880; "Strange Tales" is the title of John Minford's 2006 Penguin edition.
How many stories are in the Liaozhai?
Nearly 500. Britannica counts 431 tales, while the full Chinese text on Wikisource has 496. The number depends on which edition is counted.
Is A Chinese Ghost Story based on the Liaozhai?
Yes, loosely. The 1987 Hong Kong film, directed by Ching Siu-tung and produced by Tsui Hark, is based on the tale "Nie Xiaoqian", about a ghost girl forced by a demon to lure travellers at a ruined temple.
Are the stories scary?
Some are, such as "The Painted Skin". Many more are love stories, comedies or satires, and several of the ghosts and foxes are kind.

Sources