The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Drama

[3] Translators of the plays include Brenda Austin, Amy Dooling,[4] Edward Gunn,[2] Nick Kaldis, Jonathan S. Noble,[4] John Weinstein, and Shiao-ling Yu.

Mary Mazzilli of The China Quarterly wrote that "This adds a contemporary flavour to the texts without detracting from the meaning and style from the originals.

[2] The 2014 paperback version, described as an "Abridged Edition", includes 13 plays: The Main Event in Life, The Night the Tiger Was Caught, After Returning Home, A Wasp, Breaking Out of Ghost Pagoda, Thunderstorm, Under Shanghai Eaves, Teahouse, Guan Hanqing, The Young Generation, The Legend of the Red Lantern, Bus Stop, and Sha Yexin's Jiang Qing and Her Husbands (1990).

[6] Wetmore referred to Chen's statement in the introduction, her desire that the book "will inspire other scholars, students, and general readers to explore the richness of Chinese theatre",[7] and wrote himself that he "hopes it will, too, and believes it can.

[5] Reviewing the abridged edition, Xing Fan of University of Toronto wrote that "the thirteen plays offer the reader a nuanced, rich, and dynamic picture of modern Chinese drama: they [...] embrace both those of enduring popularity and the rarely staged, lesser known, and they comprise a variety of" genres.