Chu Tzu-ch'ing (22 November 1898-12 August 1948), essayist, scholar, and poet, was head of the Chinese department at Tsinghua University for many years. He was best known for his distinctive pai-hua [vernacular] essay style. Although his native place was Shaohsing, Chekiang, Chu Tzu-ch'ing was born in Kiangsu. Both his father and his grandfather were minor […]

Cheng Chen-to (1898-17 October 1958), literary historian, bibliophile, and editor, made major studies of the history of Chinese vernacular literature, was prominent in the Literary Research Society, and edited the Hsiao-shuoyueh-pao (Short Story Magazine). In 1937 he became dean of the college of arts and letters at Chinan University. From 1954 to 1958 he served […]

Chang Shih-chao ( 1 88 1-), journalist, educator, government official, and lawyer, established his claim to prominence in the fields of Chinese letters and political thought primarily as the editor of such journals as the Su-pao, the Tu-li chou-pao [independent weekly], and especially the Chia-yin [tiger] group of publications. A native of Changsha, Hunan, Chang […]

Yeh Sheng-t'ao (1894-), a writer of stories and an essayist noted for his high literary standards. He was a founding member of the VVen-hsüeh yen-chiu hui (Literary Research Society), which for the period of 1921-28 dictated through its influential Hsiao-shuo yüeh-pao [short story magazine] the major trends of modern Chinese literature. Yeh was also notable […]

Yü Ta-fu (1896-September 1945), a founding member of the Creation Society and one of the most important Chinese writers of the 1920's. The youngest of three boys born into a poor but scholarly family in Fuyang, Ghekiang, Yü Ta-fu received his early education in a variety of schools, including the Hangchow First Middle School. He […]

Yü P'ing-po (1899-), essayist, poet, critic, scholar, and professor. He was best known for his writings on the Hung-lou-meng and for the nation-wide campaign against them and him in 1954. A native of Tech'ing, Ghekiang, Yü P'ing-po was born into a family which had a long tradition of scholarship and literary endeavor. He was the […]

Shen Yen-ping (1896-), known as Mao Tun, the foremost realist novelist in republican China. He ceased to function as a creative writer in 1949, and he served from 1949 to 1965 as minister of culture in the Central People's Government. Ch'ingchen, a suburban district of T'unghsiang hsien, Chekiang, was the birthplace of Mao Tun. He […]

Ch'ien Hsuan-t'ung (12 September 1887-17 January 1939), applied the critical methods of Hu Shih to the study of Chinese classical texts. He taught for many years at Peking University, where he contributed articles to the Hsin ch'ing-nien [new youth] and served as one of its editors. He was also a leader in the movement to […]

Lin Yü-t'ang (1895-), scholar, writer, and journalist. In the 1930's he was a leader of the movements to use social satire and to adapt Western newspaper prose to Chinese journalism. Beginning with the publication in 1935 of My Country and My People, he established an international reputation as a writer of popular books in English […]

Liang Shih-ch'iu (1902-), literary critic, teacher, and translator of Western literature who was a leading figure in the Crescent Moon Society, a group which upheld the individual and aesthetic purposes of literary expression in opposition to the cause of proletarian realism. Although his ancestral home was in Hangchow, where his grandfather had amassed a modest […]