in which the ruling class was first described in
its decay. Against it are held up as ideals representatives of the
middle class in the guise of the gentleman brigand. Every Chinese also
knows the great satirical novel _Hsi-yu-chi_ ("The Westward Journey"),
by Feng Meng-lung (1574-1645), in which ironical treatment is meted out
to all religions and sects against a mythological background, with a
freedom that would not have been possible earlier. The characters are
not presented as individuals but as representatives of human types: the
intellectual, the hedonist, the pious man, and the simpleton, are drawn
with incomparable skill, with their merits and defects. A third famous
novel is _San-kuo yen-i_ ("The Tale of the Three Kingdoms"), by Lo
Kuan-chung. Just as the European middle class read with avidity the
romances of chivalry, so the comfortable class in China was enthusiastic
over romanticized pictures of the struggle of the gentry in the third
century. "The Tale of the Three Kingdoms" became the model for countless
historical novels of its own and subsequent periods. Later, mainly in
the sixteenth century, the sensational and erotic novel developed, most
of all in Nanking. It has deeply influenced Japanese writers, but was
mercilessly suppressed by the Chinese gentry which resented the
frivolity of this wealthy and luxurious urban class of middle or small
gentry families who associated with rich merchants, actors, artists and
musicians. Censorship of printed books had started almost with the
beginning of book printing as a private enterprise: to the famous
historian, anti-Buddhist and conservative Ou-yang Hsiu (1007-1072), the
enemy of Wang An-shih, belongs the sad glory of having developed the
first censorship rules. Since Ming time, it became a permanent feature
of Chinese governments.

The best known of the erotic novels is the _Chin-p'ing-mei_ which, for
reasons of our own censors can be published only in expurgated
translations. It was written probably towards the end of the sixteenth
century. This novel, as all others, has been written and re-written by
many authors, so that many different versions exist. It might be pointed
out that many novels were printed in Hui-chou, the commercial centre of
the time.

The short story which formerly served the entertainment of the educated
only and which was, therefore, written in classical Chinese, now also
became a literary form appreciated by the middle classes. The co