Primary Author Change to 'Chin P'ing Mei' The Plum in the Golden Vase / Golden Lotus

For the first time ever I have changed the primary author on two titles just added to my library, it says any such changes are checked and reviewed by other 'Librarythingers' but I am unclear as to whether I should have 'reported in' somewhere with a breakdown of the change?

The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P'ing Mei: Vol. 1 The Gathering

The Golden Lotus Volume 1: Jin Ping Mei

Both are single volume translations from multi volume sets of the 16th c. Chinese classic 'Chin P'ing Mei' (or 'Jin Ping Mei')

The volumes above relate to the two main English language translations of the full text.

The Plum in the Golden Vase ~ translated by David Tod Roy in 5 volumes for Princeton Library of Asian Translations
Golden Lotus ~ translated by Clement Egerton in 2 volumes for Tuttle Classics

There are also a number of other abridged versions in translations (and I have no idea what else in non English translations)

While the author remains anonymous the book was published under the pseudonym Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng (allegedly “The Scoffing Scholar of Lanling”)

although there is always confusion with Chinese names and more than one system for Anglicising them the primary authors were showing as:

Chin P'ing Mei - which although it appears prominently on many of the editions is in fact the Chinese title and not the author at all.

and the other showed as:

xiaoxiaosheng ~ which again is not really an author name but a running together of a number of the name characters appearing in the pseudonym (the equivalent of listing a name as 'johncooperclarke' only in this case 'thescoffingscholar')

Anyway, I have only changed the two the Primary author on the two volumes I was entering as I was nervous enough about that without messing with editions I don't even own?

The Golden Lotus Volume 2: Jin Ping Mei for example is still showing the Primary author as Chin P'ing Mei

Not sure if I have committed some heinous crime or whether I should check other volumes in the same series?

I have also changed the canonical name on the xiaoxiaosheng page (which was already linking through to Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng, but I am not sure whether that will feed through to the author listings that appear underneath the Primary author listing (which are perhaps generated automatically?)

I have not changed main or secondary authors (other than removing duplicate anonymous entries) since people are actually listing authors against their editions in this format?

Apologies if I have posted this to the wrong group?

nb.

A separate abridged edition of The Plum in the Golden Vase shows the author as Hsiao-Hsiao-Sheng, Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng (pseudonym) AND Xiaoxiaosheng (Author) which has a lot of built in redundancy as they are all basically the same thing...

however since shows as the Primary author and is probably a valid variant of 'Scoffing Scholar' (all be it with an extra hyphen begore Sheng) I have left it well alone.

One of my edits has now been amended to 'Lanling, Xiaoxiaosheng' which I believe to be incorrect.

Incidentaly are there formatting guidelines for recording pseudonym only names that are not technically names in the Surname, First Names sense - as in 'The Scoffing Scholar' or if a books author were only given as the 'The scarlet Pimpernel', 'The Medieval Murderers', 'Jack the Ripper' or 'Outraged from Vermont' etc.?

If it's not a first name and a last name, then "last name, first name" doesn't make sense. E.g. Reader's Digest should be "Reader's Digest" not "Digest, Reader's" because Digest isn't its last name, it's just the second word in its name. Are "Pimpernel" "Murderers" "Ripper" or "Vermont" surnames? Nope.

On the other hand, if it is a pseudonym that does consist of a first name and a last name, like Richard Bachman, then last, first can apply and it should be "Bachman, Richard".

One way to look at it is how you would expect the name to be alphabetised. Should "Outraged in Vermont" appear in the Os or the Vs? I'd say O myself.

#3 - Yes thats how I look at it too.

In this case another Librarythinger has re-edited the author of one of the editions to Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng as that is how it is shown in the majority of editions listed and how it appears at the front of the book, which is fair enough (even if it is an unusual format for Romanizing Chinese) but a comma has also been added to indicate Lanling as the family /surname which it is not.

As is later explained in the text the pseudonym as it appears in the first preface is Lan-ling Hsiao-hsiao Sheng with Lan-ling referring to a small town in Shandong and Hsiao-hsiao Sheng translating as 'the 'Scoffing Scholar".

So the Lanling is not a surname and the introduction of a comma to delimit it as one is incorrect and can not be inferred from the book or the Amazon listing.

Where as Lanling Xiao-Xiao Sheng and Lanling xiaoxiaoshen both translate to 'The Scoffing Scholar from Lanling' the revised primary author now says 'Lanling, The Scoffing Scholar' (which implies something quite different)

Incidentally the Library of Congress lists the author as Hsiao-hsiao-sheng, the alternative equivalent being Xiao-xiao-sheng, the Lanling is not included at all, and some of the editions do show as xiaoxiaosheng with the Lanling removed.

Kind of wish I hadn't even got involved in that one and I now intend to leave it well alone!

I think correcting the other edition from an a primary author showing as the title must be fairly uncontroversial, although if the 'majority' cataloguing rule is automatically assumed correct than I should have presumably left that well alone too.

Anyway, I've raised the query, stand half corrected and will now get on with reading the actual books.