Luo Guanzhong Books In Order

Publication Order of Three Kingdoms Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Au bord de l'eau Books

Luo Guanzhong
Luo Ben (c. 1330-1400) was better known by Luo Guanzhog, his style name. He was a Chinese writer that lived during the Yuan and Ming dynasties. He was also known as Huhai Sanren, his pen name.

He has been attributed with editing “Water Margin” (which are two of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature) and writing “Romance of the Three Kingdoms”.

The date and location of his birth have become controversial. One possibility was that he was originally from Taiyuan, and lived during the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty by his contemporary’s record, Jia Zhongming (the playwright), who said he met Luo in 1364.

The other possibility was that he was born in Dongyuan (which is the province of Shandong) in roughly 1280 to 1360. Literary historians have suggested other possibilities for his home, which include Jiangnan and Hangzhou.

According to Meng Fanren, Luo can be identified in the pedigree of the Luo family, with Taiyuan being his most likely hometown. However, his name isn’t in this pedigree, and some people believe that pedigree of the Luo Family alone cannot prove he is the author of Three Kingdoms.

People have doubts that if Luo came from Taiyuan originally, why he had intimate knowledge of people’s life in Shandong, and he took all of his energy and time to write them and not those people in Taiyuan, Shanxi. Some believe that the source of Taiyuan statement, written by Jia Zhongming, is most likely wrong in its handwritten copy. According to some of the recent research, there were actually two people named Luo Guanzhong. One is the author of Three Kingdoms that comes from Dongping, while the other is a Drama artist that came from Taiyuan.

His authorship of Sanguozhi yanyi and Shuihuzhuan (with the latter potentially being written with Shi Naian) is now hugely disputed. The first work is a historical narrative, and the second is a semi-historical picaresque novel about a group of outlaws, which was written in the colloquial style. Both of these works each enjoy continued popularity among Chinese readers.

It is said that the stories which make up the bulk of Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin are believed to have been developed by many different independent storytellers. Shi Nai’an is believed to be the first that assembled Water Margin into one unified work, and Luo later brought it to its current form of one hundred chapters. Luo is typically considered to be Romance of the Three Kingdom’s author.

“The Three Sui Quash the Demons’ Revolt” is a shenmo fantasy tale which has been attributed to Luo with twenty chapters, having been developed from original pieces of storytelling at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty. It was later expanded by Feng Menglong into forty chapters.

“Three Kingdoms” is a stand alone novel and was released in the year 1522. This novel offers an unsparing and startling view of how power’s wielded, and how diplomacy is conducted. It also shows how wars are fought and planned out. It’s influenced the ways that Chinese think about diplomacy, power, and war to this very day.

It depicts a fateful period right at the end of the Han Dynasty (206 BC- AD 220) when the Chinese empire’s future hung in balance. Writing over a millennium later, Luo drew on often told stories from this turbulent time to fashion a sophisticated compelling narrative, whose characters display epic grandeur and vivid individuality.

The tale starts when the emperor, who fears uprisings by peasant rebels known as the Yellow Scarves, sends out an urgent appeal to each of the provinces for popular support. In response to this, three young men: the fugitive Lord Guan, the pig-butcher Zhang Fei, and the aristocratic Liu Xuande get together to pledge eternal brotherhood and fealty to their own beleaguered government. From this series of events comes a sequence of consequence and cause that leads ultimately to the Han’s collapse.

The stories of Lord Guan, Pang Tong, Liu Bei, Zhang Fei, and all the rest were quite interesting and all are unique in their own way with each having their own part to play. Readers were glad that LuBu met his fate at Cao Cao’s hands. Zhao Zilong was an especially incredible character because he always beat everybody (despite being outnumbered 1,000 to 1) and was quite honorable.

It is rich with personalities, battles of will and wit, and military exploits. The novel is a must read, especially if you have any interest in Chinese history and culture, kung fu, military strategy, war novels, or tales about of heroes and epic adventures.

“The Three Sui Quash the Demons’ Revolt” is a stand alone novel and was released in the year 1620. Raucous humor, historical narrative, and the supernatural get interwoven together in order to tell the tale of one unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the Song dynasty.

One poor girl meets an ancient woman that gives her a magic book that allows her to create money and rice. Her dad, horrified that his daughter’s demonic nature may be discovered, marries her off. She, along with others that have supernatural abilities must flee and find themselves have landed in the middle of a grotesque version of a historical uprising. Here, facts have intermingled with wild fictions and slapstick humor.

The novel is centered around on the real events of the rebellion led by Wang Ze in 1047-48. however this is a humorous and distorted version, where Wang Ze’s lieutenants turn up while a mysterious Daoist priest, a comical peddler, and a celebrated warrior shows up despite dying many years prior.

Rather than supernatural marvels and fantastic adventures, the author looks to human fixations and vanities as well as social injustices. Which is a warning of the vulnerability of any pursuit of order in a world that is plagued by some demonic forces and mundane corruption. Even though the story takes place a long time before the era it was written, it is the tale of the Ming dynasty in Song masquerade, and warns of the downfall of the dynasty in a prescient manner.