Imperial Examination, Eight-legged Essay and Social Change

The book picks a small number of the Bingxu-year Jinshi scholars in the 12th year of Emperor Guangxu's reign to study and is divided into two parts. The first part annotates and comprehensively analyzes the eight-legged essays of 14 Jinshi scholars for the same subject 'Zi Zhang asked how a man should conduct himself', to familiar readers with the structure and technique of this genre so that they can better appreciate the conception and thought of the authors and the beauty of the eight-legged essays.The second part introduces the 16 Jinshi scholars emerged from the metropolitan examination. Read separately they are biographies. Read collectively they are a cross-section of the political, social and cultural changes of China in late 19th century.