Sign-In
Cart
Prince Dan of Yan: The First Assassin's Tale / 燕丹子 (English Edition)
Paperback
Series: The Ming-Qing Masterworks, Book 23
General FictionHistorical Fiction
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Feb 9 2026
Pages: 54
Weight: 0.19
Height: 0.11 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Before there was wuxia, there was this.
In 227 BCE, a swordsman named Jing Ke walked into the throne room of the most powerful man in China - the future First Emperor - with a poisoned dagger hidden inside a rolled map. What happened next became the founding legend of Chinese assassin literature, retold for two thousand years in opera, film, and fiction.
But the version you think you know isn't the original.
Prince Dan of Yan predates the famous account in Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian. Where the official history stripped away the supernatural and stuck to verifiable facts, this anonymous narrative kept the strange and the mythic: a crow whose head turns white, a horse that sprouts horns, omens that bend the natural world to the weight of human loyalty.
This is the story as it was first told - not as history, but as legend. A prince betrayed by his childhood friend, now king of a devouring empire. A swordsman who tests his patron's worthiness before agreeing to die for him. A mission everyone knows will fail, undertaken anyway, because some debts can only be paid in blood.
Scholars have called Yandanzi the first work of fiction in Chinese literature and the origin of the wuxia tradition.
Also from
Saric, Valentin
The Cases of Magistrate Shi - Volume One: The Scholar's Petition (English Edition)
Anonymous
Paperback
50 Phrases in 50 Languages: Boldly Learning Languages from Croatian to Thai
Saric, Valentin
Paperback
From Black Light to Vacuum Rebirth: Theories of Everything crafted by AI-Human Synergy
Saric, Valentin
Paperback
The Sobering Stone / 醉醒石, Zuì Xǐng Shí (First English Edition)
Donglugukuangsheng, Donglugukuangsheng
Paperback
The Song of the Five Phoenixes / 五鳳吟 (First Complete English Translation)
Yunyangchichidaoren, Yunyangchichidao
Paperback
Strange Tales / 括異志 (Kuo Yi Zhi): First English Edition
Zhang, Shizheng
Paperback
Tales of the Tang Dynasty (說唐): The First Complete English Translation of a Classic Chinese Novel
Guanzhong, Luo
Paperback
Eight Pieces of Brocade (八段錦): Tales of Passion from the Master Who Awakens the World (English Edition)
Xingshijushi, Xingshijushi
Paperback
Also in
Historical Fiction
James Fenimore Cooper: The Leatherstocking Tales Vol. 1 (Loa #26): The Pioneers / The Last of the Mohicans / The Prairie
Cooper, James Fenimore
Hardcover
Anniversaries, Volume 2: From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl, April 1968-August 1968
Johnson, Uwe
Paperback
The Pirate Queen: A Novel from the New York Times Bestselling Author of the Frozen River
Lawhon, Ariel
Hardcover
The Moonlight Runner: A Gripping Historical Novel of Survival, Bravery, and Romance
Robards, Karen
Hardcover
The Amalfi Curse: A Bewitching Tale of Sunken Treasure, Forbidden Love, and Ancient Magic on the Amalfi Coast
Penner, Sarah
Paperback
The Pirate Queen: A Novel from the New York Times Bestselling Author of the Frozen River (Large Print Edition)
Lawhon, Ariel
Paperback
A Pair of Aces: Reese's Book Club (Large Print Edition)
Murray, Victoria Christopher
Benedict, Marie
Paperback
Murder on the Orient Express: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition
Christie, Agatha
Paperback