"Shishuoxinyu" is a representative work of "note novels" during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties in China. It is the earliest collection of novels written in classical Chinese in my country. It originally had eight volumes, but only three volumes were lost.

"Shishuo Xinyu" is also called "Shishuo" and "Shishuo Xinshu", and the categories of volumes are also different. Because Liu Xiang once wrote "Shishuo" in the Han Dynasty (the original book is lost), later generations distinguished this book from Liu Xiang's and named it "Shishuo New Book". The name was changed after about the Song Dynasty. "Shishuoxinyu" can be divided into thirty-six categories according to its content (virtue, speech, political affairs, literature, and founder) (first divided into three volumes: upper, middle, and lower volumes). Each category has several stories. There are more than 1,200 pieces of writing in the book, and each piece of text is of different lengths, some are several lines, and some are just a few words. This shows the appeal and characteristics of "note-taking" novels. Its content mainly records the words, deeds and anecdotes of some celebrities from the late Eastern Han Dynasty to the Jin and Song Dynasties. The books contained in the book are all historical figures, but some of their remarks or stories are based on rumors and are not entirely consistent with historical facts. A considerable part of this book is collected from various books. For example, the stories of individual characters of the Western Han Dynasty contained in "Gui Zhen" and "Xian Yuan" are taken from "Historical Records" and "Han Shu". Other parts are mostly taken from previous records.