This path-breaking book describes how the Qing state dealt with jian, a Chinese term which the author translates as “illicit sexual intercourse.” Emblazoned on the jacket of the book is the Chinese character for jian, an ideograph most commonly encountered today in the compound word “qiangjian,” or rape. The sight of this character is so shocking (and suggestive) to modern Chinese sensibilities that I had to take the jacket off while on a recent train-trip through China in order to defuse the inevitable prurient questions from fellow travelers. My ruse worked, and by the end of my journey I was rewarded with a clear, compelling analysis of how the judiciary in eighteenth- and nineteenth- century China attempted to regulate the mores of an increasingly marketized and unruly society—a story with no small relevance to the changes taking place in China today.