The traditional literature of Cambodia

the long version

This is the first book on Cambodian literature to be written in English. It is a comprehensive guide to the Cambodian 'classical' literature, i.e. the literature written on palm-leaf or Chinese paper manuscripts between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. After the introduction there is a section on each of the ten genres, which include proverbs, riddles, and songs, and a description of the versification. An alphabetically arranged inventory of the authors, with all the details known about them, follows; then a similarly arranged list of works with details of manuscripts, metres etc, and with reference to the texts, versions and studies which are contained in the final part, the Bibliography. Two other sections provide resumes of the best-known folk tales and 'verse novels'.