Judge Dee


Judge Dee, or Judge Di, is a semi-fictional character based on the historical figure Di Renjie, county magistrate and statesman of the Tang court. The character appeared in the 18th-century Chinese detective and gong'an crime novel Di Gong An. After Robert van Gulik came across it in an antiquarian book store in Tokyo, he translated the novel into English and then used the style and characters to write his own original Judge Dee historical mystery stories.
The series is set in Tang dynasty China and deals with criminal cases solved by the upright and shrewd Judge Dee, who as county magistrate in the Chinese imperial legal system was both the investigating magistrate and judge.

Di Gong An

The Judge Dee character is based on the historical figure Di Renjie, magistrate and statesman of the Tang court. During the Ming dynasty in China, a "folk novel" was written set in former times, but filled with anachronisms.
Van Gulik found a copy of the 18th-century Di Gong An novel in a Tokyo book store. It's an original tale dealing with three cases simultaneously. For the most part the overbearing supernatural plot elements, common among Chinese mystery tales of that period, were lacking in this case, making the story more accessible to Western readers. He translated it into English and had it published in 1949 under the title Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee.

Van Gulik's stories

Van Gulik began writing his own novels with the character, eventually authoring sixteen books. Van Gulik was careful in writing the main novels to deal with cases wherein Dee was newly appointed to a city, thereby isolating him from the existing lifestyle and enabling him to maintain an objective role in the books. Van Gulik's novels and stories are often referred to as the Shih Ti.
Dee is initially assisted only by his faithful clerk, Sergeant Hoong Liang, an old family retainer. In The Chinese Gold Murders, which describes Dee's initial appointment and first criminal cases, the judge encounters two highwaymen, euphemistically called "men of the green woods", Ma Joong and Chiao Tai, who attempt to rob him but are so impressed with his character that they give up their criminal careers and join his retinue on the spot. This encounter is recounted in a short flashback passage in the original Di Gong An, taking place when the two are already long-serving loyal members of his retinue. A little later, in The Chinese Lake Murders, a third criminal, Tao Gan, an itinerant confidence trickster and swindler, similarly joins. Judge Dee ends his career in Murder in Canton being promoted to the position of senior Metropolitan Judge in the capital, and his assistants obtain official ranks in the Army and civil service.
Van Gulik also wrote a series of newspaper comics about Judge Dee in 1964–1967, which totalled 19 adventures. The first four were regular balloon strips, but the later 15 had the more typically Dutch textblock under the pictures.
Judge Dee, naturally, is responsible for deciding sentences as well as assessing guilt or innocence, although van Gulik notes in the stories that all capital punishments must be referred to and decided by officials in the capital. One of the sentences he frequently has to deal with is slow slicing; if he is inclined to mercy, he orders the final, fatal, cut to be made first, thus rendering the ceremony anticlimactic.
Van Gulik's Judge Dee novels have been translated into Chinese.

Other authors

Several other authors have created stories based on Van Gulik's Judge Dee character:
  • French author Frédéric Lenormand wrote 19 new Judge Dee mysteries from year 2004 at Editions Fayard, Paris. Some of them have been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Bulgarian, Czech and Polish.
  • Sven Roussel, another French author, has written La dernière enquête du Juge Ti.
  • The Chinese-American author Zhu Xiao Di wrote ten original short stories about Judge Dee collected in Tales of Judge Dee, set when the Judge was the magistrate of Poo-yang. Zhu Xiao Di has no relation to Robert van Gulik but tried to stay faithful to the fictionalized history of van Gulik's Judge Dee.
  • Judge Dee appears, along with a fictionalized Wu Zetian, in books one and two of Eleanor Cooney & Daniel Alteri's historical T'ang Trilogy.
  • Qiu Xiaolong, best known for his Inspector Chen series, released a new Judge Dee novel The Shadow of the Empire in 2021.

    By van Gulik

The following novels and short stories were published in English by van Gulik. The short story collection Judge Dee at Work contains a "Judge Dee Chronology" detailing Dee's various posts in specific years and stories set in these times. Van Gulik's last two books, Poets and Murder and Necklace and Calabash, were not listed in the chronology, as they were written after Judge Dee at Work, but they are both set in the time when Judge Dee was the magistrate in Poo-yang.
YearTitleSettingNotes
1949Celebrated Cases of Judge DeeAn "early phase of Judge Dee's career".Translated from Chinese ; not part of the later continuity. Three stories: "The Case of the Double Murder at Dawn", "The Case of the Strange Corpse", and "The Case of the Poisoned Bride". Dee is the newly appointed Magistrate of Chang-ping in the Province of Shantung. He has all four lieutenants on staff: Sgt. Hoong, Chiao Tai, Ma Joong, and Tao Gan.
1957The Chinese Maze Murders670, Lan-fangWritten in 1950, published in Japanese in 1951; Lan-fang is a fictional district at the western frontier of Tang China. Given its name, general location and supposed role in the trade route to Khotan, it has a real historical eponymous counterpart in Lanzhou.
1958The Chinese Bell Murders668, Poo-yangWritten between 1953 and 1956; Poo-yang is a fictional wealthy district on the shores of the Grand Canal of China.
1959The Chinese Gold Murders663, PenglaiDee's initial appointment and first criminal cases, the judge encounters two highwaymen, euphemistically called "men of the greenwood", Ma Joong and Chiao Tai.
1960The Chinese Lake Murders666, Han-yuanHan-yuan is a fictional district on a lakeshore near the capital of Chang-An. Huan-Yuan is an ancient name for the modern day Hancheng city in Shaanxi province.
1961The Chinese Nail Murders676, Pei-chowPei-chow is a fictional district in the far north of Tang China.
1961The Haunted Monastery667, Han-yuanJudge Dee is traveling and forced to take shelter in a monastery.
1961The Red Pavilion668, Poo-yangJudge Dee is drawn into a web of lies and sad stories in the world of the prostitutes of Imperial China.
1962The Lacquer Screen664, PenglaiJudge Dee and Chiao Tai disguise themselves to go undercover and join a gang of robbers to solve the case.
1963The Emperor's Pearl669, Poo-yangOdd things going on at the deserted villa, an apparently cursed Imperial Treasure and a perverted madman.
1965The Morning of the Monkey667, Han-yuanA short novel from The Monkey and the Tiger.
1965The Night of the Tiger676, Pei-chowA short novel from The Monkey and the Tiger.
1965The Willow Pattern677, Chang-AnJudge Dee is the Lord Chief Justice in the Imperial capital of Chang-An.
1966Murder in Canton681, GuangzhouJudge Dee is the Lord Chief Justice for all of China.
1966The Phantom of the Temple670, Lan-fangMysterious phantom haunting a Buddhist temple. 20 bars of gold missing, and the merchant's beautiful daughter.
1967"Five Auspicious Clouds"663, PenglaiA short story from Judge Dee at Work.
1967"The Red Tape Murders"663, PenglaiA short story from Judge Dee at Work. Military murder at the army fortress.
1967"He Came With the Rain"663, PenglaiA short story from Judge Dee at Work.
1967"The Murder on the Lotus Pond"666, Han-yuanA short story from Judge Dee at Work.
1967"The Two Beggars"668, Poo-yangA short story from Judge Dee at Work.
1967"The Wrong Sword"668, Poo-yangA short story from Judge Dee at Work.
1967"The Coffins of the Emperor"670, Lan-fangA short story from Judge Dee at Work.
1967"Murder on New Year's Eve"670, Lan-fangA short story from Judge Dee at Work.
1967Necklace and Calabash668, Poo-yangJudge Dee is a magistrate in the fictional Poo-yang district. Last Judge Dee novel published during van Gulik's lifetime.
1968Poets and Murder669, Poo-yangDuring a festival in Chin-hwa, Judge Dee is a guest of a group of distinguished scholars. A young girl has been murdered and the accused is a beautiful poetess.

By other authors

By the author Frédéric Lenormand :
  • Le Château du lac Tchou-an - The Zhou-an lake castle
  • La Nuit des juges - The Night of the judges
  • Petits meurtres entre moines - Little murders among monks
  • Le Palais des courtisanes - The courtesans' palace
  • Madame Ti mène l'enquête - Mrs. Dee investigates
  • Mort d'un cuisinier chinois - Death of a Chinese cook
  • L'Art délicat du deuil - The Delicate art of mourning
  • Mort d'un maître de go - Death of a Go master
  • Dix petits démons chinois - Ten little Chinese devils
  • Médecine chinoise à l'usage des assassins - Chinese Medicine for murderers
  • Guide de survie d'un juge en Chine - Survival guide for the Chinese judge
  • Panique sur la Grande Muraille - Panic on the Great Wall
  • Le Mystère du jardin chinois - The Chinese Garden Mystery
  • Diplomatie en kimono - Diplomacy in a Kimono
  • Thé vert et arsenic - Arsenic and green tea
  • Un Chinois ne ment jamais - A Chinese never lies
  • Divorce à la chinoise - Chinese-style Divorce
  • Meurtres sur le fleuve Jaune - The Yellow River Murders
By the author Zhu Xiao Di:
  • Tales of Judge Dee, ten short stories set in the time when Judge Dee is magistrate of Poo-yang,
By the author Sven Roussel:
  • La Dernière Enquète du Juge Ti set at the end Judge Dee's term of service in Lan Fang
By authors Eleanor Cooney & Daniel Alteri:
  • Iron Empress: A Novel of Mystery and Madness in Ancient China, Book One of the T'ang Trilogy,
  • Shore of Pearls: A Novel of Murder, Plague, and the Prison Island of Hainan, Book Two of the T'ang Trilogy,
By Lin Qianyu :
By the author Hock G. Tjoa:
  • The Ingenious Judge Dee, a theatrical play based on Dee Goong An,
By Qiu Xiaolong: