Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee

by Robert Van Gulik

First published 1949

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4.5(187)

Van Gulik’s translation of an anonymous eighteenth-century Chinese novel presents Judge Dee as magistrate of Chang-ping, where he investigates three cases at the same time: the double murder of travelling merchants, the unexplained death of a village shopkeeper and the poisoning of a bride on her wedding night.

The cases show the magistrate acting as detective, prosecutor and judge within the procedures of imperial Chinese law, assisted by Sergeant Hoong, Ma Joong, Chiao Tai and Tao Gan. The translation was first privately published in Tokyo in 1949 as Dee Goong An: Three Murder Cases Solved by Judge Dee and later issued under the title Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee.