The most effective fiction---- Dream of the Red Chamber

Dream of the Red Chamber	Dream of the Red Chamber

Dream of the Red Chamber, also known as A Dream of Red Mansions is one of the masterpieces of Chinese fiction. It was composed sometime in the middle of 18th century during the Qing Dynasty, and its authorship attributed to Cao Xueqin (Cao Zhan).The novel is usually grouped with three other pre-modern Chinese works of fiction, collectively known as the Four Classical Novels. Of these, Dream of the Red Chamber is often taken to be the zenith of classical Chinese fiction.It has deep effectiveness.
The novel is a detailed, episodic record of the lives of the extended Jia family, made up of two clans (the Ning-guo and Rong-guo houses), which occupies two large family compounds in the capital, Beijing. Originally extremely wealthy, with a female member who was made an Imperial Concubine, the family eventually fell into disfavour with the Emperor, and had their mansions raided and confiscated. The novel is remarkable not only in its huge cast of characters — over 400 in all, most of whom are female — and its psychological scope, but also in its precise and detailed observations of the life and social structures of 18th-century China.
Western scholars began to join the effort of researching "REDOLOGY" since 1950s, in addition to some abridged translations which were printed since the turn of this century. From 1973-1982, David Hawkes, an Oxford sinologist, and John Minford published a complete English translation, which is hailed as a classic of translation by many critics. The novel now has been translated into 17 different languages either in abridged version, such as German, Italian, Greek, Hungarian, or in complete version, such as Japanese, Korean, French, Spanish and Russian.