Mistresses of Deception

Female Swindlers in Ming Dynasty China

Bruce Rusk and Christopher Rea

Translators Bruce Rusk and Christopher Rea explore how women perpetrated, subverted, and sometimes fell victim to the elaborate cons that flourished in Zhang’s criminal underworld.

March 22, 2021

Browse Our AAS Virtual Exhibit Booth and Our Asian Studies Catalog

Asian studies is a major focus at Columbia University Press, and all of us who would usually be at the Association for Asian Studies Conference this week are disappointed not to be meeting you in person. We’ve highlighted a small...

December 17, 2019

Swindle All the Way!

Holiday Advice From the Late Ming Dynasty

“In The Book of Swindles, Rea and Rusk give us hilarious and sobering proof that swindling isn’t just a contemporary concern but has been around for centuries. . . Besides giving insight into deep societal concerns, The Book of Swindles is a great read.”...

September 28, 2018

Zhang Yingyu’s The Book of Swindles

All this week we have been sharing Sinophone literature in English translation as part of our National Translation Month feature. Below is a roundup from The Book of Swindles—a seventeenth-century story collection, offers a panoramic guide to the art of deception....