Spring Silkworms
novel by Mao Dun
Spring Silkworms (Chun Can) is a novella by the Chinese author Mao Dun about the experience of Chinese villagers engaging in sericulture.
History
Mao Dun dates the story November 1, 1932. It is part of a trilogy, together with Autumn Harvest and Winter Ruin.
Subject Matter and Themes
The major subject matter of Spring Silkworms is the difficulty villagers encounter in attempting to profit from their participation in the silk business. The story concludes, "Because they raised a crop of spring silkworms, the people in Old Tung Pao's village got deeper into debt."
A major theme of the story is the complexity the villagers face in dealing with inputs to the process (such as eggs, mulberry leaves, and equipment) and the loans they must take out to finance their activities. Complexity is added by the intrusion of foreign-owned silk processing plants ("filatures").
Historical significance
Spring Silkworms deals with economic issues that came to be an important factor in the worldview of the Chinese Communist Party—and hence of the Chinese government after the establishment of the People's Republic of China.
Comparative Perspective
Spring Silkworms bears comparison with other works of modern literature, particularly literature dealing with the lives of people living on China's economic margins.
The Good Earth by Pearl Buck describes the lives of Chinese peasants, and their economically precarious condition, during the period roughly contemporary with the story related in Spring Silkworms.
English translations
Foreign Languages Press (Beijing) published an English translation by Sidney Shapiro in 1956, which includes the rest of the trilogy and other stories.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Spring Silkworms” as novel by Mao Dun. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as novel by Mao Dun. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7580675. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1932 and 1956.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Spring Silkworms”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Spring Silkworms primary sources, Spring Silkworms archive and Spring research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Spring Silkworms”?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Spring Silkworms” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.