This book examines one of the most potent images in traditional China: the femme fatale, a beautiful woman whose sexual dominance leads to the destruction of her family and society at large. These stories were written to meet the needs of a significant literate class that emerged with the growth of towns in the Ming period. The stories are entertaining and at times risqué and raunchy. This is the first published anthology of Chinese femme-fatale stories, because previous anthologies have been devoted to "virtuous" women.