Susan Mann is Professor of History at University of California, Davis, and was president of the Association of Asian Studies 1999-2000. She is the author of Local Merchants and the Chinese Bureaucracy, 1750-1950 (1987) and Precious Records: Women in China's Long Eighteenth Century (1997), which won the Joseph Levenson Prize. She is also coeditor of Under Confucian Eyes: Writings on Gender in Chinese History (UC Press, 2001).

"Wonderful ... An erudite and important contribution to the social history of nineteenth-century China. Yet it reads almost like a novel." Times Literary Supplement (TLS) "[An] elegantly written and produced volume... the first serious effort to move beyond poetic output to detail the lives and background from which this output emerged." Women's Review Of Books "The hybrid form of The Talented Women of the Zhang Family is new and highly successful... Excellent." Harvard Journal Of Asiatic Stds

• List of Illustrations Genealogical Chart of the Zhang Family and Their Collateral Kin Prologue 1 Jining, Shandong (1893--1895) 2 Tang Yaoqing, Guixiu (1763--1831) 3 Zhang Qieying, Poet (1792--after 1863) 4 Wang Caipin, Governess (1826--1893) Epilogue. The Historian Says ... Zhang Family Chronology Glossary of Names Glossary of Terms Appendix. Selected Poems and Song Lyrics Notes References Acknowledgments Index

Susan Mann is Professor of History at University of California, Davis, and was president of the Association of Asian Studies 1999-2000. She is the author of Local Merchants and the Chinese Bureaucracy, 1750-1950 (1987) and Precious Records: Women in China's Long Eighteenth Century (1997), which won the Joseph Levenson Prize. She is also coeditor of Under Confucian Eyes: Writings on Gender in Chinese History (UC Press, 2001).

"Wonderful ... An erudite and important contribution to the social history of nineteenth-century China. Yet it reads almost like a novel." Times Literary Supplement (TLS) "[An] elegantly written and produced volume... the first serious effort to move beyond poetic output to detail the lives and background from which this output emerged." Women's Review Of Books "The hybrid form of The Talented Women of the Zhang Family is new and highly successful... Excellent." Harvard Journal Of Asiatic Stds

• List of Illustrations Genealogical Chart of the Zhang Family and Their Collateral Kin Prologue 1 Jining, Shandong (1893--1895) 2 Tang Yaoqing, Guixiu (1763--1831) 3 Zhang Qieying, Poet (1792--after 1863) 4 Wang Caipin, Governess (1826--1893) Epilogue. The Historian Says ... Zhang Family Chronology Glossary of Names Glossary of Terms Appendix. Selected Poems and Song Lyrics Notes References Acknowledgments Index

Susan Mann is Professor of History at University of California, Davis, and was president of the Association of Asian Studies 1999-2000. She is the author of Local Merchants and the Chinese Bureaucracy, 1750-1950 (1987) and Precious Records: Women in China's Long Eighteenth Century (1997), which won the Joseph Levenson Prize. She is also coeditor of Under Confucian Eyes: Writings on Gender in Chinese History (UC Press, 2001).

"Wonderful ... An erudite and important contribution to the social history of nineteenth-century China. Yet it reads almost like a novel." Times Literary Supplement (TLS) "[An] elegantly written and produced volume... the first serious effort to move beyond poetic output to detail the lives and background from which this output emerged." Women's Review Of Books "The hybrid form of The Talented Women of the Zhang Family is new and highly successful... Excellent." Harvard Journal Of Asiatic Stds

• List of Illustrations Genealogical Chart of the Zhang Family and Their Collateral Kin Prologue 1 Jining, Shandong (1893--1895) 2 Tang Yaoqing, Guixiu (1763--1831) 3 Zhang Qieying, Poet (1792--after 1863) 4 Wang Caipin, Governess (1826--1893) Epilogue. The Historian Says ... Zhang Family Chronology Glossary of Names Glossary of Terms Appendix. Selected Poems and Song Lyrics Notes References Acknowledgments Index