The Red Pavilion

POSTSCRIPT

JUDGE DEE was a historical person; he lived from 630 to 700 A.D., during the Tang dynasty. Besides earning fame as a great detective, he was also a brilliant statesman who, in the second half of his career, played an important role in the inter­nal and foreign policies of the Tang Empire. The adventures related here, however, are entirely fictitious, although many features were suggested to me by original old Chinese sources.

A good description of Judge Dee's later life will be found in chapters 37-41 of Lin Yutang's book Lady Wu: A True Story, published by Heinemann in 1957. There his name is transcribed Di Renjiay.

The plates I drew in the style of sixteenth century Chinese illustrated blockprints, and they represent, therefore, costumes and customs of the Ming period rather than those of the Tang dynasty. Note that in Judge Dee's time the Chinese did not wear pigtails; that custom was imposed on them after 1644 A.D. when the Manchus had conquered China. The men did their hair up in a top-knot, they wore caps both inside and outside the house. They did not smoke; tobacco and opium were intro­duced into China only many centuries later.

i-iii-1961 ROBERT VAN GULIK