Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee (Chinese: 狄公案; pinyin: dí gōng àn, lit. "Cases of Judge Dee", also known as Di Gong An or Dee Goong An) is an 18th century Chinese detective novel by an anonymous author. It is loosely based on the stories of Di Renjie (or Ti Jen-chieh ), a magistrate and statesman of the Tang court, who lived roughly 630–700.
The original Chinese novel contains cultural elements from the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) rather than Tang Dynasty China, which may have been done deliberately.
The book features nine drawings, three copies from old Chinese art, and six illustrations by the author.
After Robert van Gulik came across it in a second-hand book store in Tokyo, he translated the novel into English and used it as the basis to create his own original Judge Dee stories over the next 20 years.
In the English translation, Van Gulik wrote that:
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This translation is chiefly a product of the Pacific War years, 1941-1945, when constant travel on various war duties made other more complicated Sinological research impossible. |
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This novel Dee Goong An is offered here in a complete translation. Possibly it would have had a wider appeal if it had been entirely re-written in a form more familiar to our readers. |
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The English copy was first privately printed on behalf of Van Gulik by the Toppan Printing Company of Tokyo in a limited run of 1200 numbered signed copies.
Read more about Celebrated Cases Of Judge Dee: Plot Introduction, Literary Significance and Criticism, See Also
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