Background
She was born in Hangzhou, which in the early nineteenth century was a center for women artists and writers.
沈善宝
She was born in Hangzhou, which in the early nineteenth century was a center for women artists and writers.
She is the author of the Mingyuan Shihua, which provided biographical material on 500 Qing women poets, including herself. Shen"s father committed suicide in 1819 and her mother died in 1832. She sold her paintings and poetry to support herself.
In Beijing, Shen made contact with a circle of women writers, including Liang Desheng, Xu Yunjiang, Xu Zongyan, Gu Taiqing, Gong Zihang (the sister of Gong Zichen) and Li Peijin.
She was also important as a teacher. She was known to have more than a hundred female disciples.
Some of her work has been translated into English. See translations by Ellen Widmer.
Cathy Silber and Ren Zipang.
And Grace Fong. Texts of her poems and references to her (in Chinese) appear in Ming Qing Women Writers Database.