ABSTRACT
One autumn day in the 1580s the celebrated courtesan Xue Susu invites her client Censor He ỽἵ⽉, a high-ranking scholar-official in the service of the Wanli 叔 㙮 emperor (r. 1573-1620), to drink with her in the Qinhuai 䦎㶖 pleasure quarters, Nanjing’s ⋿Ṕ legendary entertainment district.1 Yet she not only entertains her guest: she also writes about the event, committing it to paper in the form of a poem and to public memory by virtue of publishing her writings. By the acts of writing and publishing the courtesan invites us – the modern critic and reader, the historian who makes the dead speak – to eavesdrop on the event. By transmitting Xue Susu’s writings across time and space, her anthologists enable us to revisit the Qinhuai pleasure quarters through her eyes.
