earliest at the center, one quickly sees that there is a substantial body of hagiographic text occupying the inner rings, attributable with relative confidence to Shenxian Zhuan and securely datable to the late Tang or earlier. Hence, of the total of 196 hagiographies (in whole or fragmentary form) included in my translation, some percentage of at least 87 is attested in Tang or earlier texts. Based upon detailed analysis of Shenxian Zhuan editions and fragments, Stephan Peter Bumbacher confirms the possibility that the text "indeed is from Ge Hong's brush"; however, if it is a forgery, "then it must have been fabricated in the time between Ge Hong's death and the earliest testimonies in the early 5th century, most probably during the first decades after his decease." Translations The earliest English translations from the Shenxian Zhuan, for instance, Lionel Giles or Eva Wong, were only of selected biographies. Robert Campany wrote the first full translation, which many reviewers have praised. For example, "monumental", "a giant leap forward in our understanding of the religious world of early medieval China", and "magisterial". Campany's book is more than a critical annotated translation; it is also a painstaking reconstruction of the textual strata. He analyzed Shenxian Zhuan quotations in some forty sources dating from the fifth to seventeenth centuries, and chronologically recompiled them into three groups. Group A are biographies fully attested in works until the end of the Tang dynasty (618-907), Group B are those only mentioned in these sources, and Group C are those ascribed to the Shenxian Zhuan only since the Song dynasty (960-1279). Reviewers have criticized some of Campany's translations for disregarding conventions (e.g., "traditions" for zhuan "biographies" noted above). For instance, he translates shijie 尸解 (lit. "corpse separation") as "escape by means of a simulated corpse". This obscure Daoist term, usually translated "liberation from the corpse" or "corpse liberation", refers to a method of xian transformation involving a substitute corpse to fake death. Other shijie translations include "release by means of a corpse", "one's soul leaves the body and becomes an immortal after death", and "dissolve bodily into a spirit". Campany lists common elements in Shenxian Zhuan narratives involving shijie transcendence. Employing bianhua simulation of death, an adept will typically pretend to become ill, feign death, and be buried. Later he or she is seen alive, always at a distant place, and when the coffin is opened, instead of