Chinese literature has traditionally been divided by both theorists and university course providers into 'classical' and 'modern.' This has left nineteenth-century fiction in limbo, and allowed negative assessments of its quality to persist unchecked. The popularity of Qing dynasty red-light fiction - works whose primary focus is the relationship between clients and courtesans, set in tea-houses, pleasure gardens, and later, brothels - has endured throughout the twentieth century. This volume explores why, arguing that these novels are far from the 'low' work of 'frustrated scholars' but in...