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Water Margin
Sign in to saveAlso known as Shui Hu Zhuan, All Men Are Brothers, Shui-hu Chuan, Outlaws of the Marsh, Tale of the Marshes, Men of the Marshes, The Marshes of Mount Liang
14th century Chinese novel, attributed to Shi Nai’an, one of China's Four Great Classical Novels
"Water Margin" is a 14th-century Chinese novel attributed to Shi Nai'an that tells the story of 108 outlaws and their adventures. It is one of China's Four Great Classical Novels and remains influential in Chinese literature and culture.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Book · Open Library
- Author
- Nai'an Shi
- First published
- 1963
- Editions
- 10
- Subjects
- China, Song Dynasty, Fiction, historical, Crime, fiction, China, fiction, Fiction, Outlaws, History
via Open Library
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- literary work
- Part of
- Four Great Classical Novels
- Genre
- historical fiction
- Country of origin
- Ming dynasty
- Depicts
- Song Jiang
- Image
- Shuihu zhuan - juan 15-19 - page 1.jpg
Show 8 more facts
- copyright status
- public domain
- Commons category
- Water Margin
- topic's main category
- Category:Water Margin
- publication date
- 1400-00-00
- language of work or name
- written vernacular Chinese
- on focus list of Wikimedia project
- Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4
- form of creative work
- novel
- title
- 水滸傳
via Wikidata · CC0
~40 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Water Margin (simplified Chinese: 水浒传; traditional Chinese: 水滸傳; pinyin: Shuǐhǔ Zhuàn), also called Outlaws of the Marsh or All Men Are Brothers, is a Chinese novel from the Ming dynasty that is one of the preeminent Classic Chinese Novels. Attributed to Shi Nai'an, Water Margin was one of the earliest Chinese novels written in vernacular Mandarin Chinese.
Set during the Northern Song dynasty (around 1120), the story follows a group of 108 outlaws that gathers at Mount Liang (also known as Liangshan Marsh) to rebel against the government. Later they are granted amnesty and enlisted by the government to resist the nomadic conquest of the Liao dynasty and other rebels. The novel's authorship has been traditionally attributed to Shi Nai'an (1296–1372), yet the first external reference to the novel only appeared in 1524 during the Jiajing reign of the Ming dynasty. Research on the various editions of Water Margin found that it underwent a complex textual evolution, and some modern scholars have argued the work to be the collective creativity of writers from multiple generations.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Water Margin” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.