Records of the Taiping Era, compiled during the Taiping Xingguo reign period (976-984) of Emperor Taizong of the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127), is a collection of about 7,000 stories, dating from the pre-Qin period (770-221 B.C.) to the early Northern Song Dynasty. The stories, mainly myths and legends, record or recount a variety of strange happenings in a succinct style. The subjects and contents as well as the literary genre thus formed exerted a tremendous influence on the development of classical Chinese novels, and indeed on Chinese literature as a whole. Many writers of later generations have sourced materials for prose and drama works from the Records of the Taiping Era. In addition, thanks to material collected in the Records, it has been possible for later generations to gain first-hand knowledge of some 400 lost books and documents.