The Columbia History of Chinese Literature is a comprehensive yet portable guide to China's vast literary traditions. Stretching from earliest times to the present, the text features original contributions by leading specialists working in all genres and periods. Chapters cover poetry, prose, fiction, and drama, and consider such contextual subjects as popular culture, the impact of religion, the role of women, and China's relationship with non-Sinitic languages and peoples. Opening with a major section on the linguistic and intellectual foundations of Chinese literature, the anthology traces the development of forms and movements over time, along with critical trends, and pays particular attention to the premodern canon.

梅维恒（Victor H. Mair）

1943年生，哈佛大学中国文学博士，著名汉学家，宾夕法尼亚大学亚洲及中东研究系教授、宾大考古及人类学博物馆顾问，还担任京都大学、香港大学、北京大学、四川大学等多所高校的兼任教职；精通中文、日文、藏文和梵文，被认为是当代西方汉学界最具开拓精神的学人，著述宏丰，研究领域包括：中国语言文学、中古史、敦煌学。

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梅维恒的学生如此评价的学术成就：“梅维恒一直大面积撒网，他能透过我们在课堂上阅读的文献，不断以他出人意表的观察来让我们感到惊奇。今天，人们总是以跨学科的名义来试图仿效世界主义，但对于那时的梅维恒而言，这并非时尚：他只是拥有难以餍足的求知与开拓的欲望。无疑的是，突破界限是我们这位导师主要的学术风格，这种风格不断从地理、范畴方面追问哪里是这些边界之所在。尽管从不玩弄时髦术语，但梅维恒却一直追问着这样的现象与议题——它们都涉及到多元文化、复杂性、他异性及底层，他又能对其工作加以认真的语言分析。语言学常被认为是十九世纪的遗留之物而被唾弃，而梅维恒证明了语言学的成功，因为以其探讨了二十一世纪的议题。”（Victor has always cast his nets widely, and he could routinely amaze uswith observations far afield from the Chinese text we were reading in class. Todaypeople often attempt to simulate this cosmopolitanism under the rubric ofinterdisciplinary study, but for Victor, it was quite untrendy: he simply hadan insatiable appetite for knowledge and pushing boundaries. Indeed,border-crossing has been our mentor's dominant mode of scholarship, a mode thathas constantly interrogated where those very borders are both geographicallyand categorically. Though never sporting fashionable jargon, Victor has alwaystaken on phenomena and issues that engage aspects of multiculturalism, hybridity,alterity, and the subaltern, while remarkably grounding his work in painstakingphilological analysis. Victor demonstrates the success of philology, oftendismissed as a nineteenth-century holdover, for investigatingtwenty-first-century concerns.）