This collection of 106 poems by 44 female Tang-era poets is the most comprehensive of its kind. Poets are organized based on their status in Tang dynasty society: women of the court, women of the household, courtesans and entertainers, and women of religion. While each poet's concerns vary with their social status, common thematic threads include heartbreak and the mysteries of the natural world. Thumbnail biographies of each poet and notes regarding individual poems complete this important collection.

Jeanne Larsen has published poetry, three novels set in China, and a book...

"Larsen's time-riddling, worlds-whirling magical show takes place in the palaces of the immortals...also on the earth of medieval China (here, the Southern Soong of A.D. 1136), and spaces in-between...A quite special pleasure."
"Kirkus Reviews"

"Anyone with a fondness for satire, sentiment, and high style will prize Bronze Mirror and return to it, surprised each time by the levels of meaning that...

"Gently intriguing, brilliantly detailed...Lotus's singular story of enlightenment, involving a statue of the goddess Tara and the secret of a mandala, is the radiant center of these diversions."
"Publishers Weekly"

"A luminous, self-contained, fluid world in which history, legend, and religious quest create a portrait of an age- the glittering high noon of the Manchu Empire...An exemplary novelist again makes history a playful parade of personalities, period details, and ordinary people...

"Larsen has used a dazzling diversity of prose styles to adroitly demonstrate how history is transmuted through the centuries into something not quite true, yet not entirely false...an illuminating and absorbing story."
"Publishers Weekly"

"A joyful blend of scholarship and fancy and an appreciation of the simple, strong, lyrical line of...

Xue Tao (A.D. 768-831) was well known as a poet in an age when all men of learning were poets--and almost all women were illiterate. As an entertainer and official government hostess, she met, and impressed, many of the most talented and powerful figures of her day. As a maker of beautiful paper and a Taoist churchwoman, she maintained a life of independence and aesthetic sensibility. As a writer, she crrated a body of work that is by turns deeply moving, amusing, and thought-provoking. Drawing knowledgeably on a rich literary tradition, she created images that here live again for the...

"A delectable selection of poems by China's greatest women poets in translations of exquisite beauty. A rare achievement "--Red Pine

"Jade Mirror's particular strength comes from the fact that all of its fine translators bring to the work different senses of where poetry is to be found in the originals as well present some of the finest poetic translation of the last twenty years."--Jerome Seaton

This anthology spans twenty-five hundred years of writing by women. These are voices that were most often left out of the official anthologies and represent a hidden tradition...