Yuan Ke (袁珂) (1916–2001) was a Chinese scholar, one of the most important specialists on

Chinese mythology Chinese mythology () is mythology that has been passed down in oral form or recorded in literature in the geographic area now known as Greater China. Chinese mythology includes many varied myths from regional and cultural traditions. Much of t ...

.Michael J. Puett. 2001. ''The ambivalence of creation: debates concerning innovation and artifice in early China'', p. 95. Stanford University Press. His first important work was ''Zhongguo Gudai Shenhua'', a ground-breaking volume on the topic first published in 1950. A second edition, revised and substantially expanded, appeared in 1957. The book was translated to several languages, including

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

(in 1959) and

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

(1965). Some of Yuan Ke's work was translated into English, i.e. in ''Dragons and Dynasties: An Introduction to Chinese Mythology'' by Kim Echlin and Nie Zhixiong.

Selected bibliography

* ''Zhongguo Gudai Shenhua'' ("Myths in Ancient China") (1950, expanded editions in 1956, 1959, and later; expanded edition published posthumously in 2004) * ''Zhongguo Shenhua Chuanshuo Cidian'' ("Dictionary of Chinese Myths and Legends") (1984) * ''Gu Shenhua Xuanshi'' ("Myths of Ancient China: An Anthology with Annotations") (1979, 1996) * ''Shanhaijing Jiaozhu'' (" The Classic of Mountains and Seas: A Collation and Connotation") (1993) * ''Zhongguo Shenhua Da Cidian'' ("A Comprehensive Dictionary of Chinese Mythology") (1998)

Notes

1916 births 2001 deaths Republic of China historians People's Republic of China historians Writers from Chengdu 20th-century Chinese historians Historians from Sichuan {{China-historian-stub