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Mid 18th century vernacular Chinese novel

Dream of the Red Chamber or The Story of the Stone is an 18th century Chinese novel authored by Cao Xueqin, considered to be one of the Four Great Classical 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 and, by extension, of the dynasty itself. Cao depicts the power of the father over the family, but the novel is intended to be a memorial to the women he knew in his youth: friends, relatives and servants. At a more profound level, the author explores religious and philosophical questions, and the writing style includes echoes of the plays and novels of the late Ming, as well as poetry from earlier periods. Cao apparently began composing it in the 1740s and worked on it until his death in 1763 or 1764. Copies of his uncompleted manuscript circulated in Cao's social circle, under the title Story of a Stone, in slightly varying versions of eighty chapters. It was not published until nearly three decades after Cao's death, when Gao E and Cheng Weiyuan (程偉元) edited the first and second printed editions under the title Dream of the Red Chamber from 1791 to 1792, adding 40 chapters. It is still debated whether Gao and Cheng composed these chapters themselves and the extent to which they did or did not represent Cao's intentions. Their 120 chapter edition became the most widely circulated version. The title has also been translated as Red Chamber Dream and A Dream of Red Mansions. Redology is the field of study devoted to the novel.

The novel is composed in written vernacular (baihua) rather than Classical Chinese (wenyan). Cao Xueqin was well versed in Chinese poetry and in Classical Chinese, having written tracts in the semi wenyan style, while the novel's dialogue is written in the Beijing Mandarin dialect, which was to become the basis of modern spoken Chinese. In the early 20th century, lexicographers used the text to establish the vocabulary of the new standardised language and reformers used the novel to promote the written vernacular.

Dream of the Red Chamber has a complicated textual history that scholars and historians have long debated. It is known with certainty that Cao Xueqin began writing Dream of the Red Chamber in the 1740s. Cao was a member of a prominent Chinese family that had served the Manchu emperors of the Qing dynasty but whose fortunes had begun to decline. By the time of Cao's death in 1763 or 1764, hand copied manuscripts of the novel's first 80 chapters had begun circulating, and Cao may have made early drafts of the remaining chapters. These hand copied manuscripts circulated first among his personal friends and a growing circle of aficionados, then eventually on the open market where they sold for large sums of money. The first printed version of Dream of the Red Chamber, published by Cheng Weiyuan and Gao E in 1791, contains edits and revisions that Cao never authorized. or that at least parts of Cao's original ending were incorporated into the 120 chapter Cheng Gao versions, with Gao E's "careful emendations" of Cao's draft.

Up until 1791, the novel circulated in hand copied manuscripts. Even amongst some 12 independent surviving manuscripts, small differences in some characters, rearrangements and possible rewritings cause the texts to vary a little. The earliest manuscripts end abruptly at the latest at the 80th chapter. The earlier versions contain comments and annotations in red or black ink from unknown commentators. These commentators' remarks reveal much about the author as a person, and it is now believed that some of them may even be members of Cao Xueqin's own family. The most prominent commentator is Zhiyanzhai, who revealed much of the interior structuring of the work and the original manuscript ending, now lost. These manuscripts, the most textually reliable versions, are known as "rouge versions" (zhī běn 脂本). The early 80 chapters brim with prophecies and dramatic foreshadowings that give hints as to how the book would continue. For example, it is obvious that Lin Daiyu will eventually die in the course of the novel; that Baoyu and Baochai will marry; that Baoyu will become a monk. A branch of Redology, known as tànyì xué (探佚學), is focused on recovering the lost manuscript ending, based on the commentators' annotations in the Rouge versions, as well as the internal foreshadowings in the earlier 80 chapters. Several early manuscripts are still extant. At the present, the "Jiaxu manuscript" (dating to 1754) is held in the Shanghai Museum, the "Jimao manuscript" (1759) is held in the National Library of China, and the "Gengchen manuscript" (1760) is held in the library of Peking University. Beijing Normal University and the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences both also held manuscripts of the novel that predate the first printed edition of 1791.

In 1791, Gao E and Cheng Weiyuan brought out the novel's first printed edition. This was also the first "complete" edition of The Story of the Stone, which they printed as the Illustrated Dream of the Red Chamber (Xiùxiàng Hóng Lóu Mèng 繡像紅樓夢). While the original Rouge manuscripts have eighty chapters, the 1791 edition completed the novel in 120 chapters. The first 80 chapters were edited from the Rouge versions, but the last 40 were newly published. In 1792, Cheng and Gao published a second edition correcting editorial errors of the 1791 version. In the 1791 prefaces, Cheng claimed to have put together an ending based on the author's working manuscripts. The debate over the last 40 chapters and the 1791–92 prefaces continues to this day. Many modern scholars believe these chapters were a later addition. Hu Shih, in his Studies on A Dream of the Red Chamber (1921) argued that these chapters were written by Gao E, citing the foreshadowing of the main characters' fates in Chapter 5, which differs from the ending of the 1791 Cheng Gao version. However, during the mid 20th century, the discovery of a 120 chapter manuscript that dates well before 1791 further complicated the questions regarding Gao E and Cheng Weiyuan's involvement—whether they simply edited or actually wrote the continuation of the novel. The book is usually published and read in Cheng Weiyuan and Gao E's 120 chapter version. Some modern editions, such as Zhou Ruchang's, do not include the last 40 chapters. In 2014, three researchers using data analysis of writing styles announced that "Applying our method to the Cheng–Gao version of Dream of the Red Chamber has led to convincing if not irrefutable evidence that the first 80 chapters and the last 40 chapters of the book were written by two different authors." In 2020, Zhang Qingshan, the president of the academic organization Society of the Dream of the Red Chamber, stated that although the authorship of the novel's last 40 chapters remains uncertain, it is unlikely Gao E was the one who wrote them.

In the novel's frame story, a sentient Stone, left over when the goddess Nüwa mended the heaven aeons ago, wants to enjoy the pleasures of the "red dust" (the mundane world). The Stone begs a Taoist priest and a Buddhist monk to take it with them to see the world. The Stone, along with a companion (in Cheng Gao versions they are merged into the same character), is then given a chance to learn from human existence, and enters the mortal realm, reborn as Jia Baoyu ("Precious Jade") – thus "The Story of the Stone". The novel provides a detailed, episodic record of life in the two branches of the wealthy, aristocratic Jia (賈) clan—the Rongguo House (榮國府) and the Ningguo House (寧國府)—who reside in large, adjacent family compounds in the capital. The capital, however, is not named, and the first chapter insists that the dynasty is indeterminate. The ancestors of the two families were made Chinese nobility and given imperial titles, and as the novel begins the houses are two of the most illustrious families in the city. One of the Jia daughters is made a Royal Consort, and to suitably receive her, the family constructs the Daguanyuan, a lush landscaped garden, the setting for much of subsequent action. The novel describes the Jias' wealth and influence in great naturalistic detail, and charts the Jias' fall from the height of their prestige, following some thirty main characters and over four hundred minor ones. As the carefree adolescent male heir of the family, Baoyu in this life has a special bond with his sickly cousin Lin Daiyu, who shares his love of music and poetry. Baoyu, however, is predestined to marry another cousin, Xue Baochai, whose grace and intelligence exemplify an ideal woman, but with whom he lacks an emotional connection. The romantic rivalry and friendship among the three characters against the backdrop of the family's declining fortunes form the central story. A series of paintings by Fei Danxu (1801–1850) depicting scenes from the novel.

Dream of the Red Chamber contains an extraordinarily large number of characters: nearly 40 are considered major characters, and there are over 400 additional ones. The novel is also known for the complex portraits of its many women characters. According to Lu Xun in the appendix to A Brief History of Chinese Fiction, Dream of the Red Chamber broke every conceivable thought and technique in traditional Chinese fiction; its realistic characterization presents thoroughly human characters who are neither "wholly good nor wholly bad", but who seem to inhabit part of the real world. The names of the characters present a challenge to the translator, since many of them convey meaning. David Hawkes left the names of the masters, mistresses, and their family members in pinyin (Jia Zheng and Lady Wang, for instance); translated the meanings of the servants's names, (such as Aroma and Skybright); and put the names of the Daoists and Buddhists into Latin (Sapientia); and those of actors and actresses into French.

Grandmother Jia , née Shi. Also called the Matriarch or the Dowager, the daughter of Marquis Shi of Jinling. Grandmother to both Baoyu and Daiyu, she is the highest living authority in the Rongguo house and the oldest and most respected of the entire clan, yet also a doting person. She has two sons, Jia She and Jia Zheng, and a daughter, Min, Daiyu's mother. Daiyu is brought to the house of the Jias at the insistence of Grandmother Jia, and she helps Daiyu and Baoyu bond as childhood playmates and, later, kindred spirits. She distributes her savings among her relatives after the seizure of their properties by the government shortly before her death. Jia She The elder son of the Dowager. He is the father of Jia Lian and Jia Yingchun. He is a treacherous and greedy man, and a womanizer. He is jealous of his younger brother whom his mother favors. He is later stripped of his title and banished by the government. Jia Zheng Baoyu's father, the younger son of the Dowager. He is a disciplinarian and Confucian scholar. Afraid his one surviving heir will turn bad, he imposes strict rules on his son, and uses occasional corporal punishment. He has a wife, Lady Wang, and one concubine: Zhao. He is a Confucian scholar who tries to live life as an upright and decent person, but out of touch with reality and a hands off person at home and in court. Jia Lian Xifeng's husband and Baoyu's paternal elder cousin, a notorious womanizer whose numerous affairs cause much trouble with his jealous wife, including affairs with men that are not known by his wife. His pregnant concubine (Second Sister You) eventually dies by his wife's engineering. He and his wife are in charge of most hiring and monetary allocation decisions, and often fight over this power. He is a cad with a flawed character but still has a conscience. Xiangling (; Hawkes/Minford translation: Caltrop) – the Xues' maid, born Zhen Yinglian (甄英蓮, a homophone with "deserving pity"), the kidnapped and lost daughter of Zhen Shiyin (甄士隱, a homophone with "Hiding the truth"), the country gentleman in Chapter 1. Her name is changed to Qiuling (秋菱) by Xue Pan's spoiled wife, Xia Jingui (夏金桂) who is jealous of her and tries to poison her. Xue Pan makes her the lady of the house after Jingui's death. She soon dies while giving birth. Ping'er (; Hawkes/Minford translation: Patience) Xifeng's chief maid and personal confidante; also concubine to Xifeng's husband, Jia Lian. Originally Xifeng's maid in the Wang household, she follows Xifeng as part of her dowry when Xifeng marries into the Jia household. She handles her troubles with grace, assists Xifeng capably and appears to have the respect of most of the household servants. She is also one of the very few people who can get close to Xifeng. She wields considerable power in the house as Xifeng's most trusted assistant, but uses her power sparingly and justly. She is supremely loyal to her mistress, but more soft hearted and sweet tempered. Xue Pan Baochai's older brother, a dissolute, idle rake who was a local bully in Jinling. He was known for his amorous exploits with both men and women. Not particularly well educated, he once killed a man over a servant girl (Xiangling) and had the manslaughter case hushed up with money. Granny Liu A country rustic and distant relation to the Wang family, who provides a comic contrast to the ladies of the Rongguo House during two visits. She eventually rescues Qiaojie from her maternal uncle, who wanted to sell her. Lady Wang A Buddhist, primary wife of Jia Zheng. Daughter of one of the four most prominent families of Jinling. Because of her purported ill health, she hands over the running of the household to her niece, Xifeng, as soon as the latter marries into the Jia household, although she retains overall control over Xifeng's affairs so that the latter always has to report to her. Although Lady Wang appears to be a kind mistress and a doting mother, she can in fact be cruel and ruthless when her authority is challenged. She pays a great deal of attention to Baoyu's maids to make sure that Baoyu does not develop romantic relationships with them. Aunt Xue , née Wang Baoyu's maternal aunt, mother to Pan and Baochai, sister to Lady Wang. She is kindly and affable for the most part, but finds it hard to control her unruly son. Hua Xiren (; Hawkes/Minford translation: Aroma) Baoyu's principal maid and his unofficial concubine. While she still has standing as the Dowager's maid, the Dowager gave her to Baoyu so, in practice, Xiren is his maid. Considerate and forever worried about Baoyu, she is the partner of his first adolescent sexual encounter in the real world in Chapter 5. After Baoyu's disappearance, she unknowingly marries actor Jiang Yuhan, one of Baoyu's friends. Qingwen (; Hawkes/Minford translation: Skybright) Baoyu's personal maid. Brash, haughty and the most beautiful maid in the household, Qingwen is said to resemble Daiyu very strongly. Of all of Baoyu's maids, she is the only one who dares to argue with Baoyu when reprimanded, but is also extremely devoted to him. She is disdainful of Xiren's attempt to use her sexual relation with Baoyu to raise her status in the family. Lady Wang later suspected her of having an affair with Baoyu and publicly dismisses her on that account; angry at the unfair treatment and of the indignities and slanders that attended her as a result, Qingwen dies of an illness shortly after leaving the Jia household. Yuanyang (; Hawkes/Minford translation: Faithful) The Dowager's chief maid. She rejects a marriage proposal (as concubine) to the lecherous Jia She, Grandmother Jia's eldest son, and commits suicide right after the Dowager's death. Mingyan (; Hawkes/Minford translation: Tealeaf) Baoyu's page boy. Knows his master like the back of his hand. Zijuan (; Hawkes/Minford translation: Nightingale) Daiyu's faithful maid, ceded by the Dowager to her granddaughter. She later becomes a nun to serve Jia Xichun. Xueyan (; Hawkes/Minford translation: Snowgoose) Daiyu's other maid. She came with Daiyu from Yangzhou, and comes across as a young, sweet girl. She is asked to accompany the veiled bride Baochai to trick Baoyu into believing that he is marrying Daiyu. Concubine Zhao A concubine of Jia Zheng. She is the mother of Jia Tanchun and Jia Huan, Baoyu's half siblings. She longs to be the mother of the head of the household, which she does not achieve. She plots to murder Baoyu and Xifeng with black magic, and it is believed that her plot cost her own life.

Qin Zhong (秦鐘, a homophone with "great lover") – His elder sister is Qin Keqing, Baoyu's nephew's wife, and so he is technically a generation younger than Baoyu. Both he and Qin Keqing are the adopted children of Qin Ye(秦業). The two boys enroll in the Jia clan's school together and he becomes Baoyu's best friend. The novel leaves open the possibility that things might have gone beyond innocent friendship. Qin Zhong and the novice Zhineng (智能, "Intelligent"; "Sapientia" in the Hawkes translation) fall in love but Qin Zhong dies soon after from a combination of his father's severe beating, sexual exhaustion, grief and remorse. One commentator writes that Qin Zhong is a pun for qingzhong (passion incarnate), and that his sister Qinshi initiates Baoyu into heterosexual relations in his dream and Qin Zhong initiates him into homosexual ones. Jia Yucun (贾雨村) — The childhood tutor of Lin Daiyu. Originally a poor scholar, he became a prefect with the help of Zhen Shiyin before being fired for corruption. He later connected himself with his distant relatives in the Jia family through the Lin family and was reinstated as prefect. Jia Lan (賈蘭) – Son of Baoyu's deceased older brother Jia Zhu and his virtuous wife Li Wan. Jia Lan is an appealing child throughout the book and at the end succeeds in the imperial examinations to the credit of the family. Jia Zhen (賈珍) – Head of the Ningguo House, the elder branch of the Jia family. He has a wife, Lady You, a younger sister, Jia Xichun, and many concubines. He is extremely greedy and the unofficial head of the clan, since his father has retired. He has an adulterous affair with his daughter in law, Qin Keqing. Lady You (尤氏) – Wife of Jia Zhen. She is the sole mistress of the Ningguo House. Jia Rong (賈蓉) – Jia Zhen's son. He is the husband of Qin Keqing. An exact copy of his father, he is the Cavalier of the Imperial Guards. Xue Baoqin (薛寶琴) – The paternal cousin of Xue Baochai. Depicted as extremely beautiful and talented. Grandmother Jia originally sought to betroth her to Jia Baoyu. Second Sister You (尤二姐) – Jia Lian takes her in secret as his lover. Though a kept woman before she was married, after her wedding she becomes a faithful and doting wife. Because of Wang Xifeng's intrigue, she finally kills herself by swallowing a large piece of gold. Liu Xianglian (柳湘蓮) – A descendant of the Liu family and an amateur actor. A bold man, he is good friends with Jia Baoyu and forms a brotherhood with Xue Pan. Lady Xing (邢夫人) – Jia She's wife. She is Jia Lian's stepmother. Xing Xiuyan (邢岫烟) – The niece of Lady Xing. She is intelligent and courteous, but is a modest beauty due to her and her family's financial struggles. Jia Huan (賈環) – Son of Concubine Zhao. He and his mother are both reviled by the family, and he carries himself like a kicked dog. He shows his malignant nature by spilling candle wax, intending to blind his half brother Baoyu. Sheyue (麝月; Hawkes/Minford translation: Musk) — Baoyu's main maid after Xiren and Qingwen. She is beautiful and caring, a perfect complement to Xiren. Qiutong (秋桐) — Jia Lian's other concubine. Originally a maid of Jia She, she is given to Jia Lian as a concubine. She is a very proud and arrogant woman. Sister Sha (傻大姐) – A maid who does rough work for the Dowager. She is guileless but amusing and caring. In the Gao E and Cheng Weiyuan version, she unintentionally informs Daiyu of Baoyu's secret marriage plans.

rquote|right| one of the great monuments of the world's literature |Review of the Dream of the Red Chamber by Anthony West, The New Yorker A 2014 study of fourteen translations of the novel concluded that the work is a "challenge even to the most resourceful of translators, and the process of rendering it into another language is bound to involve more translation problems, techniques, and principles than the process of rendering any other literary work." Accordingly, the aims and achievements of the translators differ widely. The first recorded translation into English was in 1812 by the Protestant missionary and sinologist Robert Morrison (1782–1834), who translated part of chapter four for the second volume of his unpublished 1812 book Horae Sinicae. In 1816, Morrison did publish a translation of a conversation from chapter 31 in his Chinese language textbook Dialogues and Detached Sentences in the Chinese Language. In 1819, the British diplomat and sinologist John Francis Davis (1795–1890) published a short excerpt in the London Journal Quarterly Review. Davis also published a poem from chapter 3 in the 1830 Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society. In 1842, Karl Gützlaff's article, "Hung Lau Mung, or Dreams in the Red Chamber", in the sixth volume of the "Chinese Repository", included translation and criticism of some passages. A literal translation of selected passages was published for foreigners learning Chinese by the Presbyterian Mission Press of Ningbo in 1846. Edward Charles Bowra of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs published a translation of the first eight chapters in 1868 and H. Bencraft Joly of the first fifty six chapters in 1892. The Reverend E. J. Eitel reviewed Joly's translation and condemned the novel, saying that Chinese read it "because of its wickedness." Herbert Giles, whom John Minford called "one of the more free thinking British consular officers," took a more favorable view in a twenty five page synopsis in 1885 that Minford calls still a "useful guide." Giles further highlighted it in his A History of Chinese Literature in 1901. In 1928, Elfrida Hudson published a short introduction to the novel titled "An old, old story". An abridged translation by Wang Chi Chen which emphasized the central love story was published in 1929, with a preface by Arthur Waley. Waley said that "we feel most clearly the symbolic or universal value" of the characters in the passages which recount dreams. "Pao Yu", Waley continued, stands for "imagination and poetry" and his father for "all those sordid powers of pedantry and restriction which hamper the artist". In a 1930 review of Wang's translation, Harry Clemons of The Virginia Quarterly Review wrote "This is a great novel", and along with the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, it "ranks foremost" among the novels of classic Chinese literature. In 1958 Wang published an expansion on his earlier abridgement, though it was still truncated at 60 chapters. The stream of translations and literary studies in the West grew steadily, building on Chinese language scholarship. The 1932 German translation by Franz Kuhn was the basis of an abridged version, The Dream of the Red Chamber, by Florence and Isabel McHugh published in 1958, and a later French version. Critic Anthony West wrote in The New Yorker in 1958 that the novel is to the Chinese "very much what The Brothers Karamazov is to Russian and Remembrance of Things Past is to French literature" and "it is beyond question one of the great novels of all literature." Kenneth Rexroth in a 1958 review of the McHugh translation, describes the novel as among the "greatest works of prose fiction in all the history of literature", for it is "profoundly humane". Bramwell Seaton Bonsall finished what is probably the first complete 120 chapter translation in the 1950s, Red Chamber Dream, but publication was abandoned when Penguin announced the Hawkes project. A typescript is available on the web. The respected and prolific Yang Hsien yi was commissioned to translate the first complete English version. Though he confessed that this was his least favorite of the classic novels, Yang began work in 1961 and had finished roughly 100 chapters in 1964, when he was ordered to stop. He and his wife, Gladys Yang, were imprisoned on suspicion of espionage during the Cultural Revolution, but they finished the translation as a team after their release in 1974. It was published by Beijing Foreign Language Press as A Dream of Red Mansions, in three volumes, 1978–1980. The second complete English translation to be published was by David Hawkes some century and a half after the first English translation. Hawkes was already a recognised redologist and had previously translated Chu Ci when Penguin Classics approached him in 1970 to make a translation which could appeal to English readers. After resigning from his professorial position, Hawkes published the first eighty chapters in three volumes (1973, 1977, 1980). The Story of the Stone (1973–1980), the first eighty chapters translated by Hawkes and last forty by his son in law John Minford consists of five volumes and 2,339 pages of actual core text (not including Prefaces, Introductions and Appendices) and over 2,800 pages in total. The word count of the Penguin Classics English translation is estimated at 845,000 words. In a 1980 review of the Hawkes and Minford translation in The New York Review of Books, Frederic Wakeman, Jr. described the novel as a "masterpiece" and the work of a "literary genius". Cynthia L. Chennault of the University of Florida stated that "The Dream is acclaimed as one of the most psychologically penetrating novels of world literature." The novel and its author have been described as among the most significant works of literature and literary figures of the past millennium. The sinologist Oldřich Král also undertook a Czech translation of the entire novel, Sen v červeném domě (Prague: Odeon, three volumes, 1986–1988). Slovak sinologist and philosopher Marina Čarnogurská translated into Slovak whole four volumes of the novel, Sen o Červenom pavilóne (Bratislava: Petrus, 2001–2003. ). In 2014, an abridged English translation of Dream by writer Lin Yutang resurfaced in a Japanese library. Lin's translation, about half the length of the original, is reportedly not a literal one. In a study of fourteen translations into English, German, French, Spanish, Laurence K. P. Wong finds that some challenges to translation are "surmountable", some "insurmountable," though translators sometimes hit on "surprisingly happy versions that come very close to the original," Hawkes, however, normally came up with versions that are "accurate, ingenious, and delightful " Hawkes recreates the meanings and sounds of the original with "remarkable precision, achieving much greater success than any one of his fellow translators in surmounting the limits of literary translation " Another scholar agreed that the Yang's translation is "literal" in the sense of rendering word for word, but argued that the Hawkes translation achieved what should be called a "higher level of literalness: in the sense of "text for text." That is, Hawkes tries to maintain the range and contrasting levels of usage of the original while the Yangs smooth out the language with a "plain international English" and add explanations in footnotes. Other scholars examined particular aspects of the Yangs' translation and the Hawkes and Minford translation. The names of some characters sound like the words for their personality traits, and some names serve as allusions. Hawkes conveys the communicative function of the names rather than lexical equivalence; for example, Huo Qi is homonymous with "the beginning of catastrophe", and Hawkes makes the English name "Calamity". Hawkes sometimes uses Italian/Sanskrit terms when Western Christian culture lacks a term for a concept. Gladys Yang and Yang Hsien yi prefer literal translation, informing readers of names' meanings through annotations. Zhu Jian chun argued that Hawkes’ choice to simply translate certain names that are puns makes the author's intentions clearer, and that the Yangs' choice of transliteration leaves the meaning more elusive, even if the transliterated names are more believable as character names. Zhu questioned the Yangs' translation of "Dao Ren" as "reverend". Xuxiang Suo argued, “Hawkes successfully conveyed the original textual information to foreign readers with smooth and beautiful English, but the loss of Chinese culture loaded information is inevitable. Mr. Yang mostly adopted the way of literal translation, trying his best to keep the true and idiomatic Chinese style and national tint."

Owing to its immense popularity, numerous sequels and continuations to the novel have been published, even during the Qing era. There are currently more than thirty recorded sequels or continuations to the novel, including modern ones. Modern (post 1949) continuations tend to follow after the eightieth chapter, and include those by Zhang Zhi, Zhou Yuqing, Hu Nan and Liu Xinwu.

At least fourteen cinematic adaptations of the Dream of the Red Chamber have been made, including the 1944 film directed by Bu Wancang, the 1977 Shaw Brothers adaptation starring Sylvia Chang and Brigitte Lin, and the 1988 film directed by Xie Tieli (谢铁骊) and Zhao Yuan (赵元). This last film took two years to prepare and three years to shoot, and remains, at 735 minutes, the longest Chinese film ever made. In 1981, Jiangsu Song and Dance Ensemble premiered a dance drama version of Dream of the Red Chamber. A reworked version was performed in 1982 in Beijing by China Opera and Dance Drama Theatre featuring lead dancer Chen Ailian. At least ten television adaptations have been produced (excluding numerous Chinese opera adaptations), and they include the renowned 1987 television series, which is regarded by many within China as being a near definitive adaptation of the novel. It was initially somewhat controversial as few Redologists believed a television adaptation could do the novel full justice. Producer and director Wang Fulin's decision in employing non professional young actors was vindicated as the television series gained enormous popularity in China. The series' success owes much to composer Wang Liping (王立平). He set many of the novel's classical verses to music, taking as long as four years to deliberate and complete his compositions. Other television versions include a 1996 Taiwanese series and a 2010 version directed by Fifth Generation director Li Shaohong. Unlike the other great Chinese novels, particularly Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Journey to the West, the Dream of the Red Chamber has received little attention in the gaming world, with only two Chinese language visual novels having been released as of 2017. Hong Lou Meng and Hong Lou Meng: Lin Daiyu yu Bei Jingwang (红楼梦：林黛玉与北静王) were both released by Beijing Entertainment All Technology (北京娱乐通). The latter one was released on 8 January 2010, and it is an extended version of the first game, with the main heroines of the game fully voiced and additional CG+endings. An English language opera based on the novel in two acts was composed by Chinese American composer Bright Sheng, with libretto by Sheng and David Henry Hwang. The three hour opera had its world premiere on 10 September 2016, by the San Francisco Opera. For their 2020 album, Transience of Life, the American art rock band Elysian Fields set several poems from the novel to music. In the 2023 video game Limbus Company created by South Korean studio Project Moon, character Hong Lu is based on Dream of the Red Chamber. He is one of the 12 playable sinners in the game, and wields a guandao.

Chen Weizhao (陈维昭), Hongxue Tongshi (红学通史, "A History of Redology"). Shanghai: Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2005. Annotated bibliography of Western and Chinese language books and articles (subscription required). C. T. Hsia, Ch VII, "The Dream of the Red Chamber," in The Classic Chinese Novel: A Critical Introduction (1968; rpr. Ithaca, NY: East Asia Program, Cornell University, Cornell East Asia Series, 1996. ), pp. 245–297. Zaifu Liu, Yunzhong Shu, Reflections on Dream of the Red Chamber (Amherst, N. Y.: Cambria Press, 2008). Andrew H. Plaks, Archetype and Allegory in the "Dream of the Red Chamber" (Princeton, NJ Princeton University Press, 1976). Reprinted: (Ann Arbor: U. M. I. Books on Demand, Reprint, 1993). Articles on the nature, content, and history of the novel. Shih Ch'ang Wu, On the Red Chamber Dream: A Critical Study of Two Annotated Manuscripts of the 18th Century (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1961). Chi Xiao, The Chinese Garden as Lyric Enclave: A Generic Study of the Story of the Stone (Ann Arbor, MI: Center for Chinese Studies Publications 2001). ; reprinted in Ying shih Yü, with the editorial assistance of Josephine Chiu Duke and Michael S. Duke, Chinese History and Culture Volume 2 Seventeenth Century Through Twentieth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016), pp. 134–151. Translation of a Qing dynasty commentary showing a traditional interpretation. Ruchang Zhou, Edited by Ronald R. Gray, Mark S. Ferrara, Between Noble and Humble: Cao Xueqin and the Dream of the Red Chamber (New York: Peter Lang, 2009). Translated by Liangmei Bao and Kyongsook Park. .