The Literary Revolution and the Canonization of the Collection of Stories from Abroad

This essay examines how the 1921 reprint of Zhou Shuren (Lu Xun) and Zhou Zuoren’s Collection of Stories from Abroad by the Shanghai Qunyi Book Society transformed the late Qing translation anthology into a modern literary classic within the discourse of the literary revolution. Through textual analysis of the Qunyi edition and its 1909 Tokyo original, the study reveals how the reprint — with twenty-one new translations, revised annotations, and cataloging by nationality — served as a symbolic act to legitimize the revolution. It argues that figures like Qian Xuantong and Cai Yuanpei weaponized the collection in debates against Lin Shu’s translations, framing its archaic style as proof of the New Culture advocates’ literary prowess. Zhou Zuoren’s expanded author biographies embedded “humane literature” ideals, while Lu Xun’s preface recast the collection’s commercial failure as avant-garde resistance to traditional literary norms. The Qunyi edition’s shift from endnotes to interlinear annotations and simplified punctuation democratized readership access, aligning with vernacular language reform. This canonization process, the study concludes, exemplifies the revolution’s dialectical strategy: rupturing with tradition while retroactively constructing a genealogy that linked late Qing practices to May Fourth modernity, thus solidifying the collection as a foundational text of modern Chinese literature.