This publication is the first publicly available collection of works by sinologist and ethnographer P. V. Shkurkin (1868–1943), one of the most famous orientalists of the Russian emigration, long-term friend and colleague of V. K. Arsenyev, who lived in China since 1913, later in the USA. The works of Shkurkin, who collected and translated into Russian many Chinese and Korean tales and legends, until now remained known only to scientists or were published in minimal editions at speculative prices, which prevented a wide range of readers from becoming familiar with them. The first volume of the collection included works including of which P.V. Shkurkin acted as an original prose writer - collections of stories “Hunhuzy” (1924) and “Players” (1926) and a small adventure fantasy “The Story of Captain Dougherty” (1939). In his “ethnographic stories” Shkurkin appears as an excellent expert on Chinese life. This is not surprising: Shkurkin was familiar with the Chinese Honghuz robbers, for example, firsthand and fought with them as a military man and policeman in the Far East in the 1900s.