Romantic Tales from Old Korea - Revised Edition

The title of this collection has more than one meaning. The stories are about love and romance, and they are all set in Korea. Yet each also has a fascinating romantic history of its own.
'Fragrant Springtime' is a simplified version of the famous Korean tale of Chunhyang, whose name means "springtime fragrance." The English translation reprinted here is based on a French novel published in Paris in 1892 under the name J.-H. Rosny, the pseudonym of two Belgian brothers, the Boex brothers, who had never visited Korea. In their Preface they acknowledge the help of Hong Jong-woo, the first Korean known to have reached Paris, in 1890. A remarkable figure in Korean history, Hong later became infamous for assassinating the reformer Kim Ok-gyun in Shanghai. He appears to have introduced the Boex brothers to the story of Chunhyang from a Korean book that had recently arrived in Paris.
The final story, 'A Dead Tree Blossoms,' is also connected with Hong Jong-woo. Published in Paris in 1895 as a tale "by Hong Jong-woo," it combines elements of the Korean classics Shim Cheong and Chunhyang with material found nowhere else. Written in elegant French, it was long a mystery until a recently discovered letter revealed that a French writer had actually composed the text at Hong's request. The English version included here comes from Charles Mundy Taylor's Winning Buddha's Smile (1919).
1. Between these two stories are three shorter tales translated by the Canadian missionary James Scarth Gale and published in Korean Folk Tales (London, 1913). Although presented as folk tales, they are in fact literary works by the scholar Im Bang (1640-1722), reminding us that Korea's classical writers, too, delighted in stories of love and romance.

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