author
Zi'an Wei
1819–1874
Best known for the late Qing novel Flowers in the Mirror of the Moon (Huayuehen), this Chinese writer built a lasting reputation on emotional storytelling and vivid scenes of scholar-beauty romance. His life moved between exam study, teaching, and literary work, and that mix of ambition and disappointment seems to echo through his fiction.
2 Audiobooks
About the author
Writing under the style name Zi'an and also known as Wei Xiuren, he was a Qing-dynasty novelist from Houguan in Fujian, now part of Fuzhou. Sources agree that he became known early for literary talent, passed the provincial examination in 1846, and spent parts of his career teaching and serving as a secretary or aide to officials.
He is chiefly remembered for Huayuehen (花月痕), a late Qing romance novel that remained widely read and was preserved in later printings and digital editions. Reference sources also describe him as a notably prolific writer, though Huayuehen is the work most closely linked with his name today.
There is some variation in the sources on his exact birth and death years, with records giving either 1818–1873 or 1819–1874. I have therefore kept the dates cautious here. I wasn’t able to confirm a reliable portrait image from the sources I checked, so no profile image is included.