A bit about the Plum in the Golden Vase

a 17th-century illustration for the Ming dynasty novel The Plum in the Golden Vase, newly translated, in five volumes with more than 4,400 endnotes, by David Tod Roy
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo
Photograph by John Lamberton
(http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2013/11/19/arts/19DIRTYjp1.html)
no copyright infringement intended

The Plum in the Golden Vase, an infamously pornographic tale of the rise and fall of a corrupt merchant, written by an anonymous author in the late 16th century. It can be described as Jane Austen meets hard-core pornography. It has a Proustian length, a De Mille-like number of characters, an Ullyses-like level of detail. I'm quoting all this from an article from today's NY Times, speaking about a great English rendering done by David Tod Roy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/19/books/david-tod-roy-completes-his-translation-of-chin-ping-mei.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20131119

an illustration of a fireworks display from the 1628-1643 edition
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ming_Dynasty_Jin_Ping_Mei_fireworks.jpg)
no copyright infringement intended

Let me add that I have a Romanian rendering of the book (Lotus de Aur, Vază și Prunișor de Primăvară) at home. It was published in the 1980's. Of course, it is not as complete as the scholarly edition done by David Tod Roy, while still remarkable in its own right.

And as I used the English and the Romanian titles, I think it's fair to give you also the title in original: 金瓶梅 (Jīn Píng Méi).

Maybe I'll come back to it.

illustration from 17th-century Chinese edition
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:%E9%87%91%E7%93%B6%E6%A2%85%E6%A0%BC%E5%AD%90%E9%97%A8%E6%8F%92%E5%9B%BE2.JPG)
no copyright infringement intended

(A Life in Books)