Popular Romance Literature Women were among the most avid readers of the scripts for plays, especially romantic ones like The Western Chamber, a story of a young scholar who falls in love with a well-educated girl he encounters by chance. In this scene, the young woman looks up at the moon as her maid looks at its reflection in the pond. Meanwhile, her young lover scales the wall. This multicolor woodblock print, made in 1640, was one of twenty-one created to illustrate the play. (RBA 702 405 Min Qiji: The Romance of the West Chamber; Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst, Koln, Inv.-No. 62,1 [No. 11]. Photo: © Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln)