active 873-910 Mei Huangfu

Mei Huangfu, also known as Huangfu Mei, was a Chinese writer active in the late ninth and early tenth centuries. Catalog records and public-domain editions commonly identify him as active around 873–910, and he is best known today for Shanshui xiaodu (also rendered Sanshui xiao du or Shan Shui Xiao Du).

Available source material on his life is limited, but Chinese biographical summaries describe him as an official during the Tang dynasty, including service as a county magistrate in the 870s. Those same summaries connect him with places in what are now Henan and Shaanxi, suggesting a life that moved between office, travel, and home region.

What keeps his name alive is his writing. Shanshui xiaodu is known as a collection of short narratives, and modern readers often come to it for its mix of anecdote, atmosphere, and unusual or supernatural elements. Even with few personal details surviving, his work still gives a lively sense of late Tang literary culture.