Dream of the Red Chamber
Dream of the Red Chamber, also called The Story of the Stone, or Hongloumeng (traditional Chinese: 紅樓夢; simplified Chinese: 红楼梦; pinyin: Hónglóumèng), composed by Cao Xueqin, is one of China’s Four Great Classical Novels. It was written some time in the middle of the 18th century during the Qing dynasty. Long considered a masterpiece of Chinese literature, the novel is generally acknowledged to be one of the pinnacles of Chinese fiction.[1] “Redology” is the field of study devoted exclusively to this work.[2]
The title has also been translated as Red Chamber Dream and A Dream of Red Mansions. The novel circulated in manuscript copies with various titles until its print publication, in 1791. Gao E, who prepared the first and second printed editions with his partner Cheng Weiyuan (程偉元) in 1791–92, added 40 additional chapters to complete the novel.[3]
Red Chamber is believed to be semi-autobiographical, mirroring the rise and decline of author Cao Xueqin’s own family and, by extension, of the Qing dynasty.[4] As the author details in the first chapter, it is intended to be a memorial to the women he knew in his youth: friends, relatives and servants. The novel is remarkable not only for its huge cast of characters and psychological scope, but also for its precise and detailed observation of the life and social structures typical of 18th-century Chinese society.[5] It contains within its pages a sampling of all of the major modes of the Chinese literary tradition.[6]
