This picaresque, historical romance features “Trinket”, an irreverent and comic anti-hero unlike Cha’s more conventional, valorous protagonists. Readers will meet a vast array of underworld characters, beggars, itinerant (and often fighting) monks, Taoists, Cossacks, Jesuits, herbalists, boatmen, dissident literati, corrupt magistrates, Manchu princes, and Ming loyalists.

‘One of the world’s bestselling books.’ Jeremy Treglown, selecting THE DEER AND THE CAULDRON as a 1998 International Book of the Year, The Times Literary Supplement

‘Martial Arts meet Monty Python.’ NEWSWEEK

‘I have never read a Martial Arts novel before this, but I am a convert. I might just have to add Trinket to my repertoire ...’BETSY HORN, NEW YORK CABARET SINGERR

‘Louis Cha’s so seminal, I don’t even know who number two is.’STEFAN HAMMOND, CO-AUTHOR OF SEX AND ZEN & A BULLET IN THE HEAD: THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO HONG KONG’S MIND BENDING FILMS

‘[Cha] is virtually a one-man literary movement, more a genre than an author, his thirty-six volumes of chivalry and romance mesmerizing both Chinese peasants and foreign academics alike.’SHERYL WuDUNN, THE NEW YORK TIMES

Louis Cha (Jin Yong金庸) was, until his recent retirement, founder and publisher of the Ming Pao Daily News, Hong Kong, Shin Ming Daily News, Singapore, and related publications. He is best known, however, as a writer and is the most widely read novelist in Chinese communities all over the world. His Martial Arts novels, originally written for newspaper serialization, have been adapted for TV, film, audio cassette, strip cartoon, computer games, and restaurant menus. The Deer and the Cauldron is Louis Cha’s last Martial Arts novel, and this English translation is authorized by him.