Rickshaw Boy - History

History

Lao She began the novel in spring, 1936, and it was published in installments in the magazine Yuzhoufeng beginning in January, 1937. Lao She returned to China from the United States after the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. In an afterword dated September, 1954, included in the Foreign Languages Press edition of Rickshaw Boy, Lao She said that he had edited the manuscript ("taken out some of the coarser language and some unnecessary descriptions") and he expressed regret for the lack of hope expressed in the original edition.

In 1945, Evan King cut, rearranged, rewrote, invented characters, and changed the ending. The girl student and One Pock Li are King's, not Lao She's. King also added considerable embellishment to the two seduction scenes.

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