A Chinese Bestiary: Strange Creatures from the Guideways through Mountains and Seas

Richard Strassberg is a scholar of Chinese literature, and this book, published by University of California Press, is an academic translation and study of the Shan Hai Jing, the ancient Chinese text cataloging strange creatures, places and geography, presented with Strassberg's scholarly introduction and extensive annotation. Its strength is presenting this genuinely ancient primary source directly in careful translation, with notes explaining the text's complex textual history and the many strange beings it catalogs. Its limit is that the Shan Hai Jing itself is a composite text assembled over centuries by multiple unknown hands, so its contents are best understood as a compiled catalog of Chinese mythological geography across different periods rather than the product of one author's unified vision at one moment.