Fifty essays by thirty Chinese writers bring to vivid life a period in which modernization and republicanism coexisted within classical Chinese culture. Unlike the more thematically social and political fiction of the May Fourth movement, these
xiaopin wen
, or modern essays, address their readers with a unique intimacy, adopting a highly "personal" voice that is quietly meditative, lyrical, discreet, and full of wit and melancholy. Tam King-fai supplies critical literary and historical background on the relationship between
and the May Fourth movement, and with and commentary he explicates the form's lyric aestheticism.