Writers › Writer / Poet
Lu Ciyun
Kangxi-era writer from Qiantang who wrote the Biography of Yuanyuan, an account of Chen Yuanyuan and Wu Sangui.
In a study at night, a desk holds a brush pot, a porcelain vase with a plum branch, a lit red lantern, a folded fan and an unrolled blank scroll, with no one seated there, while through a round window the moon rises over a lake with a sailboat.
Also known as Zi Yunshi · Hao Beishu
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Lu Ciyun, courtesy name Yunshi and literary name Beishu, was a Kangxi-era writer from Qiantang in Zhejiang. A tribute student who served as a county magistrate, he was a prolific poet and essayist whose works include the Beishu xuyan, notes on West Lake, a record of the southwestern hill peoples and a compendium on foreign lands. His Biography of Yuanyuan tells the life of the late-Ming courtesan Chen Yuanyuan and her fortunes with Wu Sangui against the background of Li Zicheng's capture of Beijing and Wu's opening of the passes to the Qing. Collected in Zhang Chao's anthology Yuchu xinzhi, it is, with Wu Weiye's Ballad of Yuanyuan, among the best-known tellings of her story.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; active in the Kangxi reign (his Beishu xuyan was printed in 1683)