Songling, Pu: - Pu Songling (Chinese: 蒲松齡, 1640-1715) was a Chinese writer during the Qing dynasty, best known as the author of Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (Liaozhai zhiyi), a collection of four hundred and thirty-one classical Chinese stories. The work departed from the prevailing literary fashion that was dominated by more realistic huaben stories written in the colloquial language. Pu instead wrote his stories in the classical idiom, freely adopting forms and themes from the old chuanqi ("marvel tales") of the Tang and Song dynasties.