“Biography of Mary” (Meili Xiaozhuan), “Travel Overseas” (Haiwai Zhuangyou) and “Wonderland under the Sea” (Haidi Qijing) were three classical tales written in the mid-1880s by the pioneering thinker and reformer Wang Tao in Late Qing. While scholars have pointed out the tensions between the traditional narrative form and the author’s ever-globalizing sensibility, Wang Tao expresses his disillusionment of Chinese culture when other reformers were advocating only for technological and institutional changes. Shi looks into both the contexts and texts of the three tales. Dianshizhai Pictorial, the illustrated newspaper in which the three tales were originally published, is inspected and Wang Tao’s political essays written in Hong Kong are examined to present his thoughts on Chinese culture. A life account before and after he returns to Shanghai also helps comprehend Wang Tao’s disappointment with traditional Chinese culture in his final years. Following the contextual analysis, Shi’s textual investigation focuses on how the genre plays a role. After anatomizing the images of western women and Chinese men, an examination of the narrative structures concludes the presentation.