Judge Dee and the Latest Van Gulik Additions

These days historical mysteries are all the rage. Looking over the many volumes in the mystery section of your local bookseller, you can find a wide array of mysteries covering practically every time period imaginable and numerous historical personages turned crime-solver. There are historical mysteries set in ancient Egypt, Imperial Rome and Elizabethan England; Ellis Peter's Brother Cadfael solves crimes in the Middle Ages, Laura Joh Rowlandson's samurai detective, Sano Ichiro, cracks capers in 17th Century Japan, and Barabra Hambly's Creole crime-solver, Benjamin January, uncovers the seamy side of Antebellum New Orleans. For historic personages, Doctor Samuel Johnson, Sir John Fielding, Ambrose Bierce and Jane Austen play the sleuth in their spare time. They all owe a debt to Dutch diplomat and Sino-ologist Robert van Gulik and his series of mysteries set in the 7th Century T'ang Dynasty of ancient China.

Robert Hans van Gulik was born in colonial Indonesia. He became a diplomat for the Dutch government, serving in China and Japan before and after the Second World War. While in Asia, Van Gulik became very interested in various aspects of pre-19th Century Chinese popular culture and became a highly regarded scholar, on par with Ernest Fenellosa and Lafcadio Hearn, writing several acclaimed books on a wide variety of subjects. Along the way, he became fascinated by the Chinese detective story.

The Chinese had been writing detective fiction since the 15th Century and they were wildly popular. Several basic themes run throughout Chinese detective fiction ~ the district Magistrate or Judge, the embodiment of the Imperial government at it's most basic level, was the protagonist. With the aid of his assistants in the Tribunal, the Magistrate solved three crimes which may or may ot be interlocked. A Magistrate newly arrived at his district might find a rebellious usurper in control who the Magistrate would subdue to restore order. Or the Magistrate might be corrupt and a virtuous usurper would overthrow him and be rewarded for his loyalty by the Emperor by being made the new Magistrate. Frequently, the supernatural played a part in the Magistrates investigations. When stumped by a insoluable case, the ghost of the murder victim or the Black Judge of the Netherworld himself might appear to the judge and provide him with the essential clue to the criminal. Unlike Western mysteries in which the guilty culprit is revealed at the end of the book, in the Chinese detective story the guilty person is revealed from the beginning and the puzzle is how the Magistrate will piece together the incriminating evidence. For the most part, the Magistrates were based on historical Judges such as Judge Shao, Judge Pan or Judge Dee.Intrigued by the Chinese detective novel, Van Gulik translated a 18th Century detective story, Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee, based on the exploits of the 7th Century T'ang Magistrate and statesman, Judge Dee.

Widely known for his accumen and powers of deduction in real life, Judge Dee easily passed from historical to fictional personage, becoming the Chinese equivalent of Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot. The book was accessible to Western audiences and followed the typical pattern of the Chinese detective story ~ Judge Dee solves three puzzling cases, a bit of the supernatural comes into play, the criminals are revealed, punished and the balance of order is restored. A fascinating glimpse of anicent Chinese jurisprudence and society.

In the 1950s Van Gulik decided to write his own series of detective stories utilizing the character of Judge Dee and the structure of the Chinese detective story, making the stories interesting and accessible to both Western and Asian audiences. Thus, we follow Judge Dee as he moves from district to district, solving three crimes, some interlocking and some not, with his four lieutentnants, Sergeant Hoong, an old family retainer, Ma Joong and Chiao Tai, former highwaymen who have reformed and entered the Judge's service, and Tao Gan, and interant swindler, now reformed and in service to the Judge. Some stories Van Gulik adapted from original Chinese sources, others he created himself.

The Judge Dee novels were also an outlet for the wealth of research Van Gulik had done into ancient Chinese popular culture, thus we learn about the workings of the local Tribunal, the relationship between the Chinese classes, the relationship between Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, ancient Chinese family life, a variety of Chinese festivals such as the Mid Autumn Festival and Dragonboat Races and innumerable small details such as how houses were arranged, calligraphy, the art of painting and poetry, manner of dress and grooming, the martial arts, eating arrangements, polite social interactions and ... a whole lot more. So intricately and deftly woven into the fabric of these novels are the period details that one learns a lot without even realizing it. Van Gulik also illustrated many of his novels in period style, thus adding to the works the feeling that one is reading an authentic Chinese work, not a skillful adaptation.

Here are the latest three additions in my collection of Van Gulik American first editions:

The Willow Pattern, by Robert van Gulik, published by Scribners, 1965.

The Haunted Monastery, by Robert van Gulik, published by Scribenrs, 1969.

The Lacquer Screen, by Robert van Gulik, published by Scribners.