A few years ago I started reading Jin Yong's wuxia stories and really enjoyed them. Wuxia is a broad genre of Chinese fiction that focuses on the adventures of martial artists; the stories are usually period pieces. Jin Yong (also known as Louis Cha) is one of the most famous and loved Wuxia writers. He wrote 15 stories that are well known throughout the world. I don't want to spend too much time here giving an overview of wuxia and Jin Yong, but if you're new and want to give the wuxia genre a try, I suggest you start with The Legend of Condor Heroes.
The sites where I found Jin Yong English translations stopped updating years ago and it wasn't until recently I found out that his stories were still actively being fan-translated. I decided to take a few hours and make an up-to-date list of the various Jin Yong translations I could find. I'll try to periodically update this translation listing. I hope having an easy to read list of Jin Yong in English will be helpful. Please post a comment or e-mail me if you notice I'm missing or misreporting anything!
But before I go into my list, let me provide some general links. Pretty much all the English translations (not to mention worthwhile wuxia discussion) that I know about come from the spcnet forums, specifically their wuxia sections. It is a huge forum though and takes some time to wade through, so it's worthwhile for me to point out more specific links.
Spcnet Wuxia Translations - All the active wuxia translation projects I know about take place here.
http://wuxiapedia.com/ - This site no longer seems to be updated, but they have a pretty nice layout.
http://members.cox.net/foxs/home.html - This site houses translations of Jin Yong's Condor Trilogy in pdf format. The translations themselves originated from spcnet.
QiQi Jin Yong - This site has all of Jin Yong's novels in simplified Chinese.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_Yong - For all further information, wikipedia is as good a place as any to start.
Legend
Green: Complete and pretty well edited. Ready to read!
Yellow: Not yet complete and well edited. Some translations are actively in progress.
Red: Very little to no progress.
*: I've read this translation and really enjoyed it. ymmv
I didn't provide any summaries because I think they'd be distracting for this list. Instead, I added links to the wikipedia entries. They have pretty good summaries, but be careful because there are massive spoilers as well.
It should be easy to navigate this list. The link names are generally shorthand for where the link goes to. I listed the links in the order I preferred to read them. (Although spcnet is great and very active, it is a forum and I'm not used to reading such huge blocks of text in a forum layout.) I've also added notes where I think it's appropriate.
Chronological Listing of Jin Yong Works
1. * The Book and the Sword / Book and Sword, Gratitude and Revenge (書劍恩仇錄) (Wiki)
COMPLETE Qiqi / New ending from the Third Edition
COMPLETE Official English Edition
Notes: The Official English Edition is an edited version of the qiqi link. This was the first Jin Yong translation I read and I enjoyed it.
2. Sword Stained with Royal Blood (碧血劍) (Wiki)
INCOMPLETE Spcnet Thread (Chapter 3-6)
3. * The Legend of the Condor Heroes / Legend of Eagle Shooting Hero (射鵰英雄傳) (Wiki)
INCOMPLETE Wuxiapedia (Chapter 1-27)
COMPLETE Spcnet Thread / PDF Version / PDB Version
Notes: First part of the Condor Trilogy. I'd highly recommend reading this Jin Yong novel first. The translation reads nicely and the story is very easy to get into.
4. Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain / Flying Fox of Snowy Mountain (雪山飛狐) (Wiki)
COMPLETE Official English Edition
Notes: The English Edition's translation is generally reviewed pretty negatively. I haven't read it and can't judge it myself, so I decided to list it in yellow.
5. The Return of the Condor Heroes / Divine Eagle, Gallant Knight (神鵰俠侶) (Wiki)
COMPLETE Wuxiapedia
COMPLETE Spcnet Thread / PDF Version
Notes: Second part of the Condor Trilogy.6. Other Tales of the Flying Fox (飛狐外傳) (Wiki)
INCOMPLETE Spcnet Thread
7. Swordswoman Riding West on White Horse / White Horse Neighing in the Wind (白馬嘯西風) (Wiki)
COMPLETE Spcnet Thread 1 / Spcnet Thread 2
8. Blade-dance of the Two Lovers / The Lovers' Sabres (鴛鴦刀) (Wiki)
COMPLETE Spcnet Thread
9. Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre / Heavenly Sword, Dragon Slaying Sabre (倚天屠龍記) (Wiki)
INCOMPLETE Wuxiapedia (Chapter 1-22)
COMPLETE Spcnet Thread / PDF Version
Notes: Final part of the Condor Trilogy.
10. A Deadly Secret / Secret of the Linked Cities (連城訣) (Wiki)
IN PROGRESS Spcnet Thread
11. Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils (天龍八部) (Wiki)
IN PROGRESS Spcnet Thread 1 (Chapter 1-24)
12. Ode to Gallantry (俠客行) (Wiki)
INCOMPLETE Wuxiapedia (Chapters 1-10)*
COMPLETE Spcnet Thread 1 (Chapters 1-10) / Spcnet Thread 2 (Chapters 10-21)
Notes: The second spcnet thread was translated by Abhay, primarily using online translating tools.
13. The Smiling Proud Wanderer (笑傲江湖) (Wiki)
COMPLETE LannyLand / Spcnet Thread
14. The Deer and the Cauldron / Duke of Mount Deer (鹿鼎記) (Wiki)
IN PROGRESS Spcnet Thread ( unabridged thread, has no comments but is not up to date )
COMPLETE Official English Edition Book 1 / Book 2 / Book 3
Notes: The Official English Translations are very difficult to get a hold of. They are out of print and are pretty expensive. I was able to obtain them, but in my opinion, they're not worth the price. Not only is the translation only okay, but the story is very abridged.
15. * Sword of the Yue Maiden (越女劍) (Wiki)
COMPLETE ErrantCluster
Notes: This was Jin Yong's final wuxia work. Unlike his other works, this one is a short story.
Lists of other Wuxia Translations
So far I really only enjoy Jin Yong's wuxia. I'm not a fan of Gu Long, nor a few other short works I read. But other author's works have been translated and you might be interested. These links will help you find English translated wuxia by other authors, such as Gu Long or Huang Yi.
Spcnet Translation Links - The second post in the thread starts a good list of translated wuxia work.
Wuxia Society - This place also hosts translation projects. You can wade through this section.
Wuxia Society - This place also hosts translation projects. You can wade through this section.
http://www.spcnet.tv/readingrooms/default.php - This is a well formatted list of translated wuxia work.
Spcnet Translations - This is pretty much the definitive collection of English translated wuxia, but it'll take a while to wade through everything.
http://wuxiapedia.com/ - I enjoy the layout of this site. Although it seems like it's no longer active, I prefer reading stuff from over here to other sites.
If you've run out of stuff to read and still have an wuxia itch, you can give the dramas a try. You can find torrents over at d-addicts. I've personally watched and enjoyed Demi Gods and Semi Devils 2003 and Legend of Condor Heroes 2003. I did not enjoy Return of Condor Heroes 2006.
Posts
8 comments:
Hello,
I just stumbled upon this post from your link on spcnet.tv/forums. Thanks for your compilation of Jin Yong translation links! I would just like to point out that the translation for the Lovers' Sabres is actually complete. :)
Oh, you're right! I guess I expected there to be more than that. I updated the list to mark it as complete. Thanks for pointing that out!
hi, thx for gathering this up. really love it!
i dunno if you're still updating this, but the links to members.cox.net aren't working
would you mind pointing me to the more recent ones?
Yes, I'm still trying to keep this updated. Aww, I'm sad that page is down, is was done nicely. I hope it's brought up again. In the meantime, you can use the awesome wayback machine to get the pdfs. The wayback machine keeps imageless archives of web pages, perfect for when a link goes dead. By the way, the pdfs are the same as the other translations listed on the same line in my blog post, they're just in a different format. Happy Reading!
The Legend of the Condor Heroes
The Return of the Condor Heroes
Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre
hello everyone.
i have found a page providing links to the translated books into english.
please visit http://hometvasia.blogspot.in/p/wuxia-novels-english-translation.html
i have downloaded HSDS, and now downloading others.
Thanks for the compilation of these awesome links :) It's incredibly handy, and I appreciate it a lot that you try to keep it updated. It's a nice companion to the Chinese version, since my Mandarin isn't all that hot.
Hello, thanks for the list. Now I know all titles of Jin Yong books.
But, the links couldn't worked. I want to read them so much! ;__;
can you provide another link?
Thank you so much for these!!!!
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