Dream of the red chamber (book I)

A Dream of Red Mansion was written in the latter half of the 18thcentury during the reigns of Emperors Kang Hsi, Yung Cheng, and Chien Lung, in the so-called Kangschien Golden Age. The novel circulated in manuscript copies with various titles until its print publication, in 1791. It is not only a great Chinese novel but also a pearl of world literature. The author is Cao Xueqin (1715-1763). He was born into a noble and powerful family, which was reduced from extreme prosperity to poverty. He contemplated the decline of his family and discovered that the society had grown rotten from the inside. Thus he started to write his novel The Story of the Stone (later renamed A Dream of Red Mansions), embodying his thoughts in the novel written with deliberate vagueness. A Dream of Red Mansion is regarded as the pinnacle of the Chinese classical novel. Of its 120 chapters, the first 80 were written by Cao Xueqin, while the last 40 chapters were thought to have been written by Gao E. Though certain difference can be discerned in Gao E's sequel, in respect to ideological content and artistic achievement, it still basically follows Cao's original plan and makes the novel an integral whole.