Biographies of the Immortals 列仙传

Traditionally attributed to Liu Xiang of the Western Han Dynasty, this work has been textual researched by later scholars and proven to be written by alchemists of the Eastern Han Dynasty or the Wei and Jin Dynasties.

Biographies of the Immortals

Yu Jiaxi, in his Textual Research on the Abstracts of the Four Treasuries, argued that the book prevailed in the Eastern Han Dynasty, stating it was "probably composed by someone between the reign of Emperor Ming and Emperor Shun". Ge Hong of the Jin Dynasty first mentioned this work in the Preface to Biographies of the Divine Immortals. Today, various editions exist, including the one in the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries and the version in The Daozang. The latter, in two volumes, is included in the Biographical Category of The Dongzhen Section.

As the earliest existing Taoist biographical work on immortals, it records the life stories of seventy-two immortals from the Three Ancient Dynasties to the Qin and Han Dynasties, starting with Chisongzi, the Rain Master of the Shennong era, and ending with Xuansu, an alchemist of the Western Han Dynasty. Each biography is followed by a eulogy, which was added by later generations, and such immortal narratives became an important origin for the spread of Golden Elixir culture in later Taoist practice.

The book circulated widely after the Jin Dynasty. Taoist biographies of immortals in successive dynasties drew much material from it, and literati also frequently used the immortal stories in it as allusions in their works.