Cheng Xiaoqing / Zhang Ailing

Overall summary of stories

Cheng Xiaoqing —

The Ghost in the Villa

• Detective story inspired by Sherlock Holmes tradition

• Rational investigation exposes supposed supernatural mystery

• Modern science triumphs over superstition

Zhang Ailing —

Love in a Fallen City(1943)

• Romance during wartime Hong Kong

• Bai Liusu seeks survival through marriage

• Love exists within instability and collapse

Historical background

• Shanghai modernity

• Popular literature boom

• Wartime occupation

• Commercial urban culture

Dates

• 1910s–30s: Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies fiction

• 1937–45: Sino-Japanese War

• 1943: Love in a Fallen City

Important names

• Sherlock Holmes

• Mu Shiying

• Shanghai modernists

Theories / concepts

• Popular literature

• Urban modernity

• Cosmopolitanism

• Melodrama

• Feminine modernity

Themes

• Love and survival

• War

• Urban alienation

• Rationality

• Illusion

• Decadence

• Gender and power