Guishen liezhuan 鬼神列傳

Guishen liezhuan 鬼神列傳, full title Xieshi guishen liezhuan 謝氏鬼神列傳 “Master Xie’s many biographies of ghosts and spirites” is a collection of stories of bizarre occurrences and persons written by a certain Master Xie 謝氏, whose identity and dates of life are unknown. The book is mentioned in the bibliographical chapter Jingji zhi 經籍志 in the official dynastic history Suishu 隋書 among the “miscellaneous biographies” (zazhuan 雜傳), indicated with a length of 1 juan, while the book catalogue in the Xintangshu 新唐書 lists it in the novellist category (xiaoshuojia 小說家), and gives the length as two fascicles. One single story survives that is quoted in the Song-period encyclopaedia Taiping yulan 太平御覽. It is reproduced in Lu Xun’s 魯迅 collection Gu xiaoshuo gouchen 古小說鉤沉.