active 19 century Yitang Wu

Wu Yitang, also listed as 吳貽棠, is identified by Project Gutenberg simply as a 19th-century author and is represented there by one work, 風月鑒 (Feng Yue Jian). Reliable biographical details are scarce, which is common for lesser-known writers whose works survive more clearly than their life stories.

Catalog and reprint sources connect 風月鑒 with the Qing dynasty. One Chinese reference describes Wu Yitang as a writer from what is now Guangshan in Henan and associates him with the Jiaqing-era world, but the broader picture remains fragmentary, so it is safest to treat him as an obscure 19th-century Chinese novelist known mainly for this book.

That relative obscurity is part of what makes the work interesting for modern readers: it offers a glimpse of popular literary culture beyond the most famous names in Chinese fiction. Because confirmed information about the author is limited, his surviving reputation rests largely on the continued circulation of 風月鑒 itself.