The novel was written in Classical Chinese by an anonymous writer using the pseudonym Yehua Sheng (). According to its preface, Su'e pian was engraved by Hangzhou-based engraver Huang Yikai (), and published . An English translation of the story was written by E. D. Edwards and published in Chinese prose literature of the Tang period (1935). A complete Ming edition of the novel, believed to be the only one left in existence and previously owned by Columbia University professor Wang Jizhen (), is housed in the library of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction in Bloomington, Indiana.
