ABSTRACT
One autumn day in the 1580s the celebrated courtesan Xue Susu invites her client Censor He 何侍御, a high-ranking scholar-official in the service of the Wanli 萬曆 emperor (r. 1573–1620), to drink with her in the Qinhuai 秦淮 pleasure quarters, Nanjing's 南京 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.
