author
Xiang Liu
A major scholar of China’s Western Han dynasty, this writer helped preserve and organize a huge body of early Chinese literature. He is especially remembered for editing the imperial library and for works that shaped how later generations read classical texts.
9 Audiobooks
說苑
by Xiang Liu
說苑, Volume 17-20
by Xiang Liu
列女傳
by Xiang Liu
說苑, Volume 13-16
by Xiang Liu
說苑, Volume 9-12
by Xiang Liu
說苑, Volume 1-4
by Xiang Liu
說苑, Volume 5-8
by Xiang Liu
列仙傳
by Xiang Liu
新序
by Xiang Liu
About the author
Born Liu Gengsheng and later known by the courtesy name Zizheng, he lived from 77 BCE to 6 BCE and served as a scholar, librarian, historian, poet, and government official during the Western Han dynasty. His career brought together public service and literary work, giving him unusual access to important texts.
He is best known for cataloging, editing, and preserving the imperial library. That work made him one of the key figures in the transmission of early Chinese literature, because many classical writings survived in part through the bibliographic and editorial efforts associated with him.
He also wrote and compiled influential works of history and moral biography, including the Lienü zhuan (Biographies of Exemplary Women). Today, he is remembered not just as an author in the narrow sense, but as a careful curator of culture whose work helped define what later generations would know as the Chinese classics.