[1] A native of Foshan, Guangdong province,[2] he is known for several novels, namely Bizarre Happenings Eyewitnessed over Two Decades, A Strange Case of Nine Murders, and The Sea of Regret.

He was writing modern fiction at least a decade before Lu Xun, and was ahead of his time in his use of narrators and a centralized character.

[4] From 1902 to 1910, Wu Jianren wrote the most articles in the group of writers who responded to Liang Qichao's "revolution of Chinese novel".

He used the knowledge that he learned in traditional Chinese study to create many great pieces of Novels-poetry, anecdotes, fiction criticism and joke collections.

[9] Wu Jianren wrote novels for an audience who did not receive a classical education, and used everyday vernacular speech in his works.

[12] In some of Wu Jianren's novels he let the self-conscious author-narrator lead readers to understand the fiction setting.

《九命奇冤》(strange grievance case of nine lives) is a novel that wrote based on 《梁天来警富奇书》(A mystery book of Liang Tianlai).