The Return of the Condor Heroes
core novel 1959 The Condor Trilogy
Record
| Original title | 神鵰俠侶 |
|---|---|
| First published | 1959 |
| Original language |  ZH |
| First English translation | 2023 |
| Translator | Gigi Chang |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.51 (935 ratings, collected 2026-09-27) |
| First-edition ISBN | 9787806553329 |
Synopsis
Twelve years after the second Contest of Mount Hua, the Mongols under Ogedai have crushed the Jurchen Jin and turn their armies on the Song. Yang Guo, the orphaned son of the treacherous Yang Kang, is living as a vagrant when a chance meeting with his father's sworn brother Guo Jing brings him into the martial world of his parents. Ill at ease in Guo Jing's household and mistreated at the Quanzhen sect's monastery in the Zhongnan Mountains, where he is sent to train, he flees into the Tomb of the Living Dead and finds a new master: Xiaolongnü, the Dragon Girl, a young woman raised in seclusion by a rival school. Their bond as master and apprentice deepens into a love that the martial world regards as taboo, and Yang Guo must also come to terms with the truth about his father's death.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Condor Trilogy
- Series: not part of a registered series (standalone work within its universe)
- Author: Jin Yong
Notes
- The second novel of the Condor Trilogy, a direct sequel to The Legend of the Condor Heroes, serialised in Ming Pao from 20 May 1959 to 5 July 1961 and revised in 1976 and 2003. Registered as one work (the standard four-volume Chinese edition is one novel split for length). An official English translation by Gigi Chang is in progress at MacLehose Press: volume 1, A Past Unearthed, appeared in 2023, with three volumes to follow.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within The Condor Trilogy (standalone work): position 1 of 9: next Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre, Volume 1 (1961)
Sources
← The Condor Trilogy dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.