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recent years there have been some detailed studies. The following were particularly useful in the preparation of the Introduction:
    Armin Arnold,
Die Literatur des Expressionismus: sprachliche und thematische Quellen
(The Literature of Expressionism: Linguistic and Thematic Sources), Stuttgart, 1966. A lively account, though Arnold’s judgements are sometimes questionable.
    Juliet Bredon,
Peking
(1919; reprinted by Oxford University Press in 1982), was invaluable in identifying many of the places mentioned in the text.
    Dscheng Fang-hsiung,
Alfred Döblins Roman
,
“Die Drei Sprünge des Wang Lun” als Spiegel des Interesses moderner deutscher Autoren an China
(AD’s novel “The Three Leaps of Wang Lun” as a reflection of the interest of modern German authors in China), Frankfurt, 1979. Dscheng sets
Wang Lun
in the context of a German response to China which he finds more spiritually profound than the response of French or English writers. More importantly, he reveals for the first time just how true Döblin’s imagination was to the deeper meaning of the Chinese works he read. Some of the same ground is covered, rather less thoroughly, in Ingrid Schuster,
China & Japan in der deutschen Literatur 1890–1925
, Bern, 1977.
    Otto Keller,
Döblins Montageroman als Epos der Moderne
(AD’s montagenovel as the epic of the modern), Munich, 1980. A detailed study from a psychoanalytical perspective.
    Leo Kreutzer,
Alfred Döblin: sein Werk bis 1933
(AD, his work up to 1933), Stuttgart, 1970. A dependable and judicious account of Döblin’s early life and work.
    Matthias Prangel,
Alfred Döblin
(Stuttgart, 1973). A bibliography interspersed with useful biographical details.
    I wish to thank Professor Anthony Tatlow and Dr Herbert Pierson for help in locating some of these reference materials.
       1. The first German paperback edition was published in 1970, with a second printing in 1980. Both printings together reached 25,000 copies. The only translations of
Wang Lun
up to now have been into Danish (1926) and French (1932). Plans for an English version while Döblin was in exile in America in the 1940s came to nought.
       2. Döblin, “Arzt und Dichter” (Doctor and Writer), 1927, in
Autobiographische Schriften und letzte Aufzeichnungen
(Autobiographical Writings and Last Sketches), p. 26.
       3. Ibid., p. 25.
       4. Döblin,
Schicksalsreise
(Fateful Journey) 1949 (reprinted in Munich, 1986), p. 109.
       5. Quoted in Arnold, op. cit., pp. 22–25.
       6. Döblin, “An Romanautoren und ihre Kritiker” (Berliner Programm) (To novelists and their critics: the “Berlin Programme”) in
Der Sturm
, Vol. 4 (1913).
       7. Döblin, “Epilog” (1948), in
Autobiographische Schriften
, p. 441.
       8. Döblin (1927), quoted in Kreutzer, op. cit., p. 39. The term “Expressionist” was not used of themselves by any of the major writers who were later so labelled. It was mostly the group around
Der Sturm
with their programmes and manifestos who proclaimed themselves Expressionists.
       9. Arnold, op. cit., p. 84.
    10. Helmut Koopmann, “Alfred Döblin: ‘Die Drei Sprünge des Wang Lun’ in neuer Sicht”. (A new look at AD’s “Three Leaps of Wang Lun”, unpublished essay.)
    11. Döblin, “Aufsätze zur Literatur” (Essays on Literature), p. 338.
    12. Martin Buber
, Die Reden und Gleichnisse des Tschuang-tse
, 1910; Richard Wilhelm,
Tao-te-ching
, 1911;
Dschuang Dsi
, 1912; and
Liä Dsi, das wahre Buch vom quellenden Urgrund
, 1912.
    13. Döblin,
Schicksalsreise
, p. 109.
    14. Döblin, “Aufsätze zur Literatur”, p. 338.
    15. Walter Muschg,
Afterword
to the modern German edition of
Wang Lun
.
    16. Dscheng, op. cit., p. 142.
    17. Samuel Cooling,
Encyclopedia Sinica
(Shanghai, 1917; reprinted in Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1983): article on Wu-wei.
    18. J. J. M. de Groot,
Sectarianism and Religious Persecution in China
(Leiden, 1901; reprinted in Taipei: Ch’eng Wen Publishing Co., 1970), Vol. 1,