New Accounts of the World

Liu Yiqing of the Liu Song dynasty in the Southern Courts gathered about him scholars of letters and collected the anecdotes and stray tales of eminent men from the close of the Han through to the Eastern Jin, arranging them under thirty-six categories—among them Virtuous Conduct, Speech, Governance, Letters, Square Integrity, and Elegant Breadth of Mind—and composed therewith New Accounts of the World. The Book of Sui: Treatise on Classics counted under the fiction category of the philosophers' section, calling it the Accounts of the World in eight volumes; the Old Book of Tang: Treatise on Classics likewise placed it among the fiction category, listing the Accounts of the World in ten volumes. Terse in its phrasing yet far-reaching in its meaning, the work excels at rendering the spirit of its characters in a handful of words, and capturing the manner of the pure conversation of the age. And so later ages have chiefly placed it among the fiction writers of the philosophers' section, regarding it as the forefather of character sketches and jottings. Yet the accounts within it of eminent men's discernment, their unrestrained ways, their retreats from the world, and the virtuous women among them are equally sufficient to supply what is wanting in the formal histories. And for observing the customs of the gentry of Wei and Jin and the rise and fall of the great clans, this work is indispensable. Though it be counted among the fiction writers, it is romantic and enduring in its grace, and later poets and writers drew their allusions and imagery from it more than from almost any other source.