The Chalk Circle

This article is about the original Chinese play. For other uses, see Chalk Circle (disambiguation).

The Chalk Circle
Original language	Classical Chinese
Written by	Li Qianfu
Characters	Zhang Haitang Ma Junqing Lady Liu Zhang Lin Bao Zheng
Subject	Judge Bao fiction
Genre	zaju

The Chalk Circle
Traditional Chinese	灰闌記
Simplified Chinese	灰阑记
Literal meaning	story of the boundary of lime
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin huī lán jì

An illustration of a scene from The Chalk Circle

The Chalk Circle (sometimes translated The Circle of Chalk), by Li Qianfu, is a Yuan dynasty (1259–1368) Chinese classical zaju verse play and gong'an crime drama, in four acts with a prologue. It was preserved in a collection entitled Yuan-chu-po-cheng, or The Hundred Pieces. The Chinese language original is known for the beauty of its lyrical verse, and considered a Yuan masterpiece; a series of translations and revisions inspired several popular modern plays.