The article focuses on Robert van Gulick’s detective novels, which serve as an example of revising the Chinese «judicial» novel in accordance with the requirements of the European detective fiction. The features that distinguish the traditional Chinese «judicial» novels from the European detective stories, are listed in the «Translator’s Preface» to the novel «The Celebrated Cases
of Judge Dee,» translated by R.van Gulick (1949). Details of the writer’s work on the series of novels about judge Dee are found in the «Postscripts» to the books in question. R. van Gulick used ancient Chinese legal treatises, historical works, own research as sources for the plots, but changed and reworked traditional Chinese themes taking into account the perception of a Western reader.