The red brush

the long version

"From Ban Zhao (ca. 60-ca. 115 C.E.) to Qiu Jin (1875-1907), spanning the two millennia of imperial China (221 B.C.E.-1911), the authors of The Red Brush trace the lives and works of writing women: empresses and palace ladies, daughters of the elite, courtesans, nuns, peasant wives, and cross-dressing revolutionaries. Wilt Idema and Beata Grant have compiled in this volume an ambitious and illuminating collection of poetry, prose, drama, and fiction, as well as memorials, letters, religious writings, and other documents by women writers of imperial China, all in new translations. Many of these writings are of substantial literary quality, and all of them offer a fascinating glimpse into the lives of the women writers of this period."--BOOK JACKET.