Wu Mei Yuan Explained

Wu Mei Yuan^[1] or Wumei yuan^[2], translated into English as the Destinies of Five Beauties,^[3] is a Chinese romantic novel of the early 19th-century during the Qing dynasty. The novel is usually categorized as one of the caizi jiaren novels. Its authorship is ascribed to a writer named Jisheng Shi (寄生氏), which is a pseudonym, however, this is also disputed.^[4] It consists of 80 chapters. An early printed edition of the novel dating to 1822 is located in the National Library of China.

Notes and References

1. Book: Wang, Qingping . 1998 . The Commercial Production of the Early Qing Scholar-beauty Romances . Stanford University . 35 . Wu Mei Yuan 五美緣. 80 chapters. Preface by Jisheng Shi 寄生氏. Renwu 壬午, (1822)..
2. Book: Salmon, Claudine. 2013. Literary Migrations: Traditional Chinese Fiction in Asia (17th-20th Centuries). Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. 144. 9789814414326.
3. Book: Brokaw, Cynthia J. . 2020 . Commerce in Culture: The Sibao Book Trade in the Qing and Republican Periods . Brill . 497 .
4. Web site: 《五美缘》. 《中国大百科全书》第三版网络版 . zh.