The book could be considered the most significant Penguin Classic ever published...Lu Xun is critically regarded as the most accomplished modern writer of the most populous nation on earth, and a grasp of his work is thus extremely useful in forming an understanding of much of humanity...Julia Lovell's are arguably the most accessible translations yet

The short story was Maugham's true metier, and the stories he wrote are among the best in the language

One of our great story-tellers

At his best he can tell a story as well as any man alive or dead

Touched by genius

He is surely a genius in that he has created his own unique recognisable world

Wonderfully funny ... meticulously crafted

Breath-taking ... Su Tong renders these people so vividly they possess of us, the individuality that they deny one another

Scorching ...spinning a plot featuring blackmail, adultery, incest and scandal, Su Tong creates visceral drama that moves rapidly in Goldblatt's fluid translation

A riveting melodrama ... page by page, the novel stuns us with a sequence of hallucinatory, disturbing inventions ...Balzac and Zola would have recognized a kindred spirit in Su Tong

These are stories that will sneak into the back of your brain and lurk there long after you are finished reading.