An abridgement — The Romance of the Three Kingdoms

This 2018 new translation is by Martin Palmer a visiting professor in Religion, history and nature at University of Winchester, UK, assisted by 3 other persons.

It is not an illustrated edition as touted by Penguin without doing lasting damage to the English language if several b&w sketches can qualify as an illustrated edition.

The stories are abridged to give readers the complete story line. The flavour and drama are missing due to the need to reduce the text. This is a useful book for readers not able or willing to read the Moss Roberts complete 2-volume translation. There is a useful list of main characters, map, and introduction.

Readers looking for an English language analysis of the characters in the Three Kingdoms should read the Burning at the Red Cliffs A Guide to the Three Kingdoms by Li Lien Fung. This 260-page book is an excellent overview of the Three Kingdoms.

Besides giving us character studies of the famous persons that inhibit the story, she has gone deeper into the sources to tell us more about these persons. We are also told which scene is now immortalised in Beijing opera.

Poser – why did Luo Guan Zhong the writer of the Three Kingdoms favor Liu Bei over Cao Cao?

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