花也憐儂（韓邦慶）的長篇小說《海上花列傳》，給讀者提供了最早的形象展示中國古老宗法社會向現代工商社會轉變的文學畫面；小說以寫實的姿態對海上妓家暴其奸譎，不僅終結了我國妓女文學中綿遠久長的「救風塵」主題，而且使文學史露出了人性覺醒的曙光；在結構上，小說突破了傳統世情小說慣有的家族型結構方式，而是在廣泛的社會交往網路中探討現代長篇小說的結構技巧。此外，採用吳方言進行文學創作，也是對小說現代性特徵的有益嘗試。

The novel “Prostitute in Shanghai” by Bangqin Han, offered the earliest literary image, which showed a truly picture changing from the ancient patriarchal society to the modern industrial and commercial one in China. It exposed the craftiness and fawning of the prostitution in Shanghai by writing realistically. It was not only the end of ever-lasting subject that is “coming to the prostitute’s help” in the writing on prostitution, but also the beginning of waking up the normal human feelings. It inquired into the writing technique of the modern novels getting bogged down in the net of social association while
breaking through the family-style structure that the traditional novels facing to the ways of the world had. Besides, Wu dialect was adopted in writing, which was a good test for the novels in modernization.