The Shadow Book of Ji Yun: The Chinese Classic of Weird True Tales, Horror Stories, and Occult Knowledge

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Imagine if H.P. Lovecraft were Chinese and his tales were true. Or if a national, political figure like Benjamin Franklin was also a paranormal investigator—one who wrote up his investigations with a chilling, story-telling flair that reads like a combination of Italo Calvino, Lafcadio Hearn, and Zhuangzi.

In China, at roughly the same time that Franklin was filling the sky with electrified kites, a figure existed who was a little bit of both these things. He was Special Advisor to the emperor of China, Head of the Department of War, Imperial Librarian, and one of the most celebrated scholars and poets of his time. His name was Ji Yun.

Beginning in 1789, Ji Yun published five volumes of weird tales and ghost stories that mixed supernatural autobiographical accounts with early speculative fictions. Blending insights into Chinese magic and metaphysics with tales of cannibal villages, sentient fogs, alien encounters, and fox spirits; as well as accounts of soul swapping, haunted cities, and the "jiangshi" ; there is no literary work quite like that of Ji Yun.