The Classic Chinese Novel, first published in 1968 and reprinted several times, is an introduction for Western readers to the six novels of the Ming and Qing dynasties which Hsia considered to be of highest value: Romance of the Three Kingdoms; Water Margin; Journey to the West; Jin Ping Mei (Golden Lotus); The Scholars; and Dream of the Red Chamber.
[14] C. T. Hsia was particularly adept at rediscovering and showcasing marginalized writers like Shen Congwen, Qian Zhongshu, or Eileen Chang.
[15] On the later, he writes: "to the discerning student of modern Chinese literature, Eileen Chang is not only the best and most important writer in Chinese today; her short stories alone invite valid comparisons with, and in some respects claim superiority over, the work of serious modern women writers in English Katherine Mansfield, Katherine Anne Porter, Eudora Welty, and Carson McCullers.
Karen S. Kingsbury thus notes: "As C. T. Hsia, one of her earliest and most perceptive advocates, remarked (in A History of Modern Chinese Fiction), mi-century American readers' view of China were greatly influenced by writers like Pearl.
[18] In 1981, it was at Hsia's recommendation that Eileen Chang expressed an interest in having her English translation of Han Bangqing's Sing-Song Girls of Shanghai published by Columbia University Press.
[21] In addition to his two monumental works, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction and The Classic Chinese Novel, C. T. Hsia also published many articles "ranging from nineteenth century literati culture and novels (on The Flowers in the Mirror [Jinghuayuan 鏡花緣]) to modern national discourse and family romance (on the fiction of Tuan-mu Hung-liang 端木 蕻良), and from the dialectic of passion and life in the Ming drama (on The Peony Pavilion [Mudanting 牡丹 亭]) to the dialectic of passion and death in the early Republican Mandarin Duck and Butterfly fiction (on the Jade Pear Spirit [Yulihun 玉梨魂]).
Prusek, Lee goes on, faults Hsia for being "politically biased and failing to grasp the 'objective truth', as would benefit a 'scientific endeavor".
In the case of A History of Modern Chinese Fiction, Wang argues that this voluminous work remains relevant although it is much less theory-laden than its counterparts for Western literary texts.
[29] Wang observes that Hsia's literary history was controversial in Mainland China due to its perceived hostility to leftist literature.
Leo Ou-fan Lee explains that many nationalist Chinese considered this view unpatriotic and politically biased.