Romance of the Three Kingdoms Volume 1

"Empires wax and wane; states cleave asunder and coalesce." This is classical Chinese literature. The Tuttle Classics two-volume set is a nice version. I bought this to replace my missing Volume 1. I have no complaints. This is, however, the Brewitt-Taylor translation. It's not a bad translation, but a modern western reader introduced to this book through video games may prefer a Moss Roberts translation so that all the names and place names are familiar.

My mother in law recommended this book. Its a great read to learn Chinese history from a fictional book.

excellent reading material - fiction historical of background China dynasty. very interesting!

good gift for a dear friend.

This is a great work of literature, and this edition's introduction is a great transition for the Western reader into the right mindset.

I couldn’t decide whether to give this book 3 or 4 stars. According to the introduction, it is the oldest Chinese novel, first appearing in print in 1522 CE, but probably having circulated in manuscript form for some time earlier than that. The events it chronicles occurred between 100 and 300 CE, a time when the Han Dynasty was dissolved into three separate kingdoms. This is a novel of historical fiction, with, according to the introduction, a heavy emphasis on the fiction. Although it relies on historical accounts of the period it tells about, it also takes a lot from earlier popular plays and stories of the same events. There are two things, in particular, that kind of put me off it. One is the sheer number of characters at the beginning. It is all but impossible to keep up with them, and the fact that many of them are from the same families and so share the same family name, plus the other fact that many of them also have nicknames and/or titles that are frequently used along with or instead of their proper names only compounds this problem. By about halfway through this volume, however, many of them have been killed off, which makes it slightly easier to keep up with the others. The other thing that kind of put me off is the constant description of battles and military campaigns. According to the introduction, this feature was very popular with the early readers and listeners in China, and of course, there’s no changing it now. But I suspect that books of this type have heavily influenced fantasy novels of a military cast even today, which I also find depressing in their constant reciting of the details of battle after battle. There are interesting things about the book though. One is the standard start to most of their battles, in which the commanders of each side send out single combatants, like David and Goliath or medieval knights at a tournament to fight each other before the battle begins. Nobody promises that the winner of these preliminary fights will decide the battle for everybody else though. This is where the fictional aspect of this book shows through most clearly. Sometimes one or the other of these preliminary fighters is defeated after one or three rounds of combat – and then everybody else rushes in and the real battle begins – which seems likely to be a believable outcome. But other times they attack each other fifty or a hundred times without either party gaining an advantage, which sounds more like a tall tale of some kind. Most times after this the rest of the armies get tired of waiting around and just attack each other anyway. The other interesting thing, and the one that gives it something of a plot, is that all the leaders of the different factions have one or more strategists (usually more) helping them out. The strategists recommend to their masters the best tactics to defeat the other side. If there is more than one strategist they frequently disagree on the best tactics, and it is left to the leader to decide which one to use. Sometimes the leader ignores all of them and does his own thing, but this usually goes badly for him. Generally, the best plan is to have the best strategists and to pay attention to them. This volume ends with something of a cliffhanger. My favorite of the warlords, Liu Pei, who is a nice guy (very honorable, but perhaps a bit too nice for his own good as a military type) is being advised to kill off one of his relatives to complete the conquest of the area he is trying to consolidate. The outcome of this advice is left for the next chapter – which will be in the next volume. I don’t intend to get the next volume.

This book came is in excellent condition and looks like it will be a great read. I bought it for my husband for Christmas and I know he'll be very excited to read it! :)

Bought this for my son. He loves Chinese history. This book is actually historical fiction. My son says it is great. In fact, he has read it many times.

Good quality, arrived safely from Germany to Canada. My boyfriend was so happy to get this book for Christmas.

...el libro llegó maltratado y muy sucio. Quizá por eso estaba en rebaja aunque no especificaba un remate de almacén o que fuera usado

I have read and reread "The three Kingdoms" many times over the years. It is one of the greatest novels ever written. This is why I have bought a new copy - the old one is too much "read".

Primera parte de esta enorme obra de la literatura China, excelente traducción, algo anticuada, si bien la edición deja bastante que desear. No entiendo porque los editores con el afán de reducir costes publican en papeles de tan baja calidad y no cuidan más el aspecto de este tipo de libros que merecen algo mejor.

本書で採用している中国語表記法はWade systemですので現在流通 している中国語辞典とは表記法が異なり、地名・人名を読むことは できません。 図書館で古いWade systemを採用しているChineese-Englishの辞典 を探すことになるでしょう。渡辺精一や井波律子による邦訳を参照 するか三民書局の三國演義(繁体字中国語版)を参照するのがお手軽 です。 中国古代の官職名や制度名などの訳語なども、邦訳や中国語原文を 参照しながら読んだ方が理解しやすいです。 Taylorの英文自体は、かなり文語的で手強いのですが邦訳があるの で安心して味わうことができます。(Taylorの英訳からの邦訳では 無いですが、原文からの邦訳を参照するのでも十分楽しめます)