Written by Pu Songling and originally titled "Qingwashen" (青蛙神), "The Frog God" was first collected in the 1740 publication Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (Liaozhai), and fully translated into English by Sidney L. Sondergard in 2014. "The Frog God" is followed by "Another Frog God Tale", a separate encounter featuring the same Frog God. In the original version of Liaozhai, it has the nondescript title of "You" () which indicates a continuation, to some extent, of the previous story. The Martin Bodmer Foundation Library houses a 19th-century Liaozhai manuscript, silk-printed and bound leporello-style, that contains three tales including "The Bookworm", "The Great Sage, Heaven's Equal", and "The Frog God".
