Dream of the Red Chamber

Dream of the Red Chamber, also known as The Story of the Stone, is an 18th-century Chinese novel authored by Cao Xueqin, considered one of the Four Great Classic Novels of Chinese literature. It is known for its psychological scope and its observation of the worldview, aesthetics, lifestyles, and social relations of High Qing China. The intricate strands of its plot depict the rise and decline of a family much like Cao's own, with the author exploring religious and philosophical questions alongside a memorial to the women he knew in his youth. Cao apparently began composing the novel in the 1740s and worked on it until his death in 1763 or 1764, leaving an uncompleted eighty-chapter manuscript that circulated under the title Story of a Stone. It was not published until Gao E and Cheng Weiyuan edited the first and second printed editions, titled Dream of the Red Chamber, from 1791 to 1792, adding 40 chapters to reach the widely circulated 120-chapter edition.