Chapter 69 postscript

Due to well-known reasons, Lin Yutang was once unfairly evaluated and treated in mainland China.With the comprehensive reform and opening up of the mainland's economy and culture and the gradual improvement of cross-strait relations, this injustice has gradually become history, and people have begun to re-understand Lin Yutang. It has been widely concerned and valued by literary critics, literary history researchers and readers.This is the luck of the research and reading circles, and also of Lin Yutang. Lin Yutang wrote very formal autobiographical works, one was written in his early years, and the other was "Self-narration at Eighty" written in his later years. It is not difficult to edit one.However, Lin Yutang, who is a famous prose writer, has so many vivid and interesting autobiographical prose, it would be a complete pity if he could not be included.Therefore, the editor adopted some remedial measures.The so-called remedial measures are to compile a new set of "quasi" autobiographical texts based on Lin Yutang's autobiographical essays, reminiscence essays, and essays in addition to the autobiographical works written by Lin Yutang himself, which is called: Autobiographical Supplements.

"Supplements to Autobiography" is divided into five series. The first series is "My Belief", which mainly includes some works expressed by Lin Yutang about his beliefs and ideological tendencies; the second series is "About Humor", which collects Lin Yutang's works. An article about "humor" that Yutang himself thinks is very important.As he said, "Humor draws people to first acquaintance", he is a person who advocates humor very strongly, for which he has been misunderstood and attacked, and has also been honored.It can be said that all reputations come from humor, so a special series is made. From this group of texts, we can see what the "humor" he advocates is; the third series is "My Work", which is roughly about his own works and works. We edit explanation, introduction of magazine. "Contemporary Chinese-English Dictionary" was the work that Lin Yutang was most devoted to in his later years. The Chinese typewriter was a dream he had all his life and the "job" he couldn't let go of. These two major events have a happy ending in the end. Lin Yutang can Rest assured to leave this world.The last two short essays are called "Standing This and Keeping Photos"; the fourth series is "My Life", which mainly includes Lin Yutang's short essays describing his daily life, from which we can see Lin Yutang's humorous and optimistic attitude towards life The fifth series is "Overseas Footprints". This group of texts roughly reflects Lin Yutang's overseas life from 1936 to 1976 before his death.

The editors of this book mainly refer to the following editions: "Anthology of Talking About Everything" published by Kaiming Bookstore in Taiwan; "Jianfu Collection" and "My Words" photocopied by Shanghai Bookstore based on the original edition; and "Selected Works of Lin Yutang" edited in recent years (Strait Literature and Art Publishing House, 1988 edition); Ji Jiying edited "Lin Yutang's Prose Collection" (Baihua Literature and Art Publishing House, 1987 edition); Zhang Minggao and Fan Qiao edited "Lin Yutang's Selected Works" (China Radio and Television Press, 1990 edition); Taiwan Jinlan "Lin Yutang's Classics" published by the Publishing House, etc.In the process of editing and proofreading, I have received help from the various editions above. I would like to express my deep gratitude to all translators, editors and publishers!Because Lin Yutang's works involve ancient and modern China and foreign countries, especially his English works, translation is very difficult and there are many mistakes.This book has tried its best to collate during editing, but there must still be many mistakes and mistakes. I hope readers can criticize and correct them.

Liu Huiying July 1994