The Travels of Lao Can as a book of prophecy

Abstract

This article interrogates the early reception history of the late Qing Chinese novel The Travels of Lao Can authored by Liu E (1857–1909). It argues that for decades this novel was widely read as a book of prophecy that revealed the future of China based on traditional Chinese occult wisdom. It was this alleged mystique, instead of its literary merits, that accounted for the high popularity of the text in the late Qing and Republican book market. This argument is predicated upon the discovery and reappraisal of a 1916 “fake edition” of the book until now unremarked in Chinese literary historiography. Investigating this forgery reveals that it was arguably the most widely circulated edition of The Travels of Lao Can in the Republican period. Bound with a newly fabricated sequel that explicitly manifested its “divinatory efficacy”, this edition greatly shaped the popular reception of the text as a book of prophecy. Revisiting this “fake edition” and the forgotten stories behind it not only enables the rereading of The Travels of Lao Can in its full complexity, but also points to deeper questions about the relationship between print culture, literary consumption, and the production of occult knowledge in China's modern transition.