Career
She was the wife of Xu Zongyan, a prominent intellectual from Hangzhou. Liang Desheng wrote the final three volumes of the tan-ci Zai sheng Yuan. The first seventeen volumes had been written by Chen Duansheng, but she had died before she could complete the work.
There were more women who tried their hand at writing a conclusion to the book, but hers was considered superior.
lieutenant is now regularly printed together with the first seventeen volumes. lieutenant was first published in 1821 and deals with the affairs of three families in the Yunnan province, during the early Qing Dynasty.
She also published a collection of poetry, Guchunxian ji (Poems from Ancient-Springtime Studio)
Translations of her poems are available in several collections. See the translation by Nancy Hodes and Tung Yuan-fang.
