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, still 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 second volume of the collection includes transcriptions of classical Chinese legends and tales - the folk “Legend of the White Snake”, which became the basis of numerous dramatic and opera productions, films, etc., as well as the famous Taoist legend “The Journey of the Eight Immortals Overseas”. Neither before nor after the works of P. V. Shkurkin, these works, fundamental to Chinese culture, were translated into Russian.