[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-143819-en":3,"doc-seo-143819-105":30,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":91},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":20,"is_downloadable":20,"audit_status":20,"page_count":21,"language":22,"language_code":23,"site_id":24,"html_lang":23,"table_of_contents":25,"faqs":26,"seo_title":27,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":28,"read_time":29},143819,1374391975076,"Riley","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/14000253ca4ec9f6853?x-image-process=image/resize,m_fixed,w_180,h_180&k=1783305029341752051",2,"Literature","The Dream of the Red Chamber - Foreword","Foreword presents The Story of the Stone as the foundational masterpiece of traditional Chinese vernacular fiction, linking it to Ming and late-Ming storytelling traditions and highlighting how Dream extends inherited narrative techniques into introspective autobiography and psychological realism. It outlines Cao Xueqin’s origins, the Cao family’s rise and disgrace, and the novel’s unfinished state, later completed by Gao E and published in 1792. It also emphasizes the work’s cultural impact, extensive reprinting and commentary, continual adaptations, and wide multilingual translations.","The DREAM of the  \nRED CHAMBER  \nWritten by Cao Xueqin Translated by H. Bencraft Joly  \nWith a New Foreword by John Minford and a New Introduction by Edwin Lowe  \nTUTTLE PUBLISHING Tokyo • Rutland, Vermont • Singapore  \nForeword  \nThe Story of the Stone (Shitouji, 石頭記), otherwise known as A Dream of Red Mansions or The Dream of the Red Chamber (Hongloumeng,紅樓夢), is the greatest of all the traditional Chinese novels.1 Dream inherits the proud tradition of vernacular fiction that had grown out of the storytellers’repertoire during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644)— such wonderful“blockbuster” sagas as Water Margin (Shuihuzhuan, 水 滸 傳) and The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo yanyi,三國演義), or the picaresque telling of the adventures of Monkey in Journey to the West (Xiyouji, 西遊記), rich in allegory and fantasy. Above all it is descended from the late-Ming novel of manners Golden Lotus (Jinpingmei, 金瓶梅), a Chinese Liaisons Dangereuses, in which dark and frequently comical human impulses, and elaborate sexual games, are played out against the vividly depicted daily life of a wealthy libertine. Dream builds on this grand story-telling tradition, but takes it in a wholly new direction. It transforms Chinese mainstream fiction for the first time into an eloquent and subtly crafted vehicle for introspective autobiography and psychological realism, for memory and selfreflection. At the same time it engages in a lyrical and riddling quest for meaning in human experience (the Tao), taking the reader on a witty excursion down the pathways of Zen enlightenment and holding up a searching mirror to the ambivalence of the worldling’s “reality” and“illusion.” It is superbly written and enormously long, well over one million words from beginning to end, with a gallery of over three hundred unforgettable characters from all walks of life.  \nThe novel was begun in the mid-18th century by Cao Xueqin (曹雪 芹, 1715?–1763), the empoverished grandson of Cao Yin (曹寅, 1658– 1712), wealthy favorite of the great second emperor of the Manchu dynasty (and contemporary of Louis XIV), Kangxi (康熙, 1654–1723) . The Cao family had known extraordinary wealth and privilege, belonging as they did to the elite inner circle of Bond-servants to the Imperial Household, attached to  \nthe Manchu Plain White Banner. This “honorary Manchu” family was later amalgamated into the ranks of the Chinese Banners, the organizational structure created for Han-Chinese families that had thrown in their lot with the invading Manchus. During the reign of Kangxi’s successor, Yongzheng (雍正, reigned 1723–1736) the Cao family was disgraced and ruined, and Cao Xueqin himself lived most of his life in abject poverty in the rural outskirts of Peking, remembering and chronicling in fictional form the“golden days” of his youth, recreating his “dream,” describing in loving detail the aristocratic jeunesse dorée that had surrounded his adolescence. He never lived to finish his great project. His incomplete Dream, which circulated for decades in hand-written and annotated copies, was later edited and brought to a conclusion by another Chinese Bannerman, Gao E ( 高鶚, ?1740–1815), who added to the eighty chapters left by Cao Xueqin an ending in forty chapters, most probably based on fragmentary manuscripts left behind by Cao.2 This 120-chapter novel was printed and published for the first time in early 1792, complete with a series of fine woodblock illustrations, and it was this version that quickly became the standard one. It was reprinted again and again, with a growing number of commentaries, and went on to become enormously popular and influential in upper-class 19th-century Chinese households. As the saying went, if you were unable to drop references to this particular novel into your daily conversation, you were simply a nobody. It was loved for its extraordinarily vivid characterization, for its heightened Bannerman sensibility, for its encyclopedic recreation of a great culture in its last heyday ","cbCaip8Thm6OmzjF","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaip8Thm6OmzjF","pdf",5171770,1,1171,"English","en",105,"# Foreword\n## Origins and literary lineage\n## Author background and completion\n## Publication history and cultural influence","[{\"question\":\"What novel is presented in the foreword, and what other names does it have?\",\"answer\":\"The foreword discusses The Story of the Stone (Shitouji), also known as A Dream of Red Mansions and The Dream of the Red Chamber (Hongloumeng).\"},{\"question\":\"How did Cao Xueqin’s life relate to the creation of the novel?\",\"answer\":\"Cao Xueqin began the work in the mid-18th century, and the foreword links its autobiographical tone to remembered “golden days” of youth and later poverty after the Cao family’s disgrace under Yongzheng.\"},{\"question\":\"How was the novel completed and first published?\",\"answer\":\"Cao Xueqin did not finish it; Gao E later edited and concluded it, and the 120-chapter version was printed and published for the first time in early 1792 with woodblock illustrations.\"}]","The Dream of the Red Chamber - Foreword | PDF",1787696863,1803,{"code":4,"msg":31,"data":32},"ok",{"site_id":24,"language":23,"slug":33,"title":13,"keywords":34,"description":14,"schema_data":35,"social_meta":86,"head_meta":88,"extra_data":90,"updated_unix":28},"the-dream-of-the-red-chamber-foreword","",{"@graph":36,"@context":85},[37,53,68],{"@type":38,"itemListElement":39},"BreadcrumbList",[40,44,47,50],{"item":41,"name":42,"@type":43,"position":20},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":45,"name":46,"@type":43,"position":11},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",{"item":48,"name":12,"@type":43,"position":49},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/",3,{"item":51,"name":13,"@type":43,"position":52},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/the-dream-of-the-red-chamber-foreword/143819/",4,{"url":51,"name":13,"@type":54,"author":55,"headline":13,"publisher":57,"fileFormat":60,"inLanguage":23,"description":14,"dateModified":61,"datePublished":62,"encodingFormat":60,"isAccessibleForFree":63,"interactionStatistic":64},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":56},"Person",{"url":41,"name":58,"@type":59},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-09-04","2026-08-25",true,{"@type":65,"interactionType":66,"userInteractionCount":20},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":67},"ViewAction",{"@type":69,"mainEntity":70},"FAQPage",[71,77,81],{"name":72,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":74},"What novel is presented in the foreword, and what other names does it have?","Question",{"text":75,"@type":76},"The foreword discusses The Story of the Stone (Shitouji), also known as A Dream of Red Mansions and The Dream of the Red Chamber (Hongloumeng).","Answer",{"name":78,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":79},"How did Cao Xueqin’s life relate to the creation of the novel?",{"text":80,"@type":76},"Cao Xueqin began the work in the mid-18th century, and the foreword links its autobiographical tone to remembered “golden days” of youth and later poverty after the Cao family’s disgrace under Yongzheng.",{"name":82,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":83},"How was the novel completed and first published?",{"text":84,"@type":76},"Cao Xueqin did not finish it; Gao E later edited and concluded it, and the 120-chapter version was printed and published for the first time in early 1792 with woodblock illustrations.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":51,"og:type":87,"og:title":13,"og:site_name":58,"og:description":14},"article",{"robots":89,"canonical":51},"index,follow",{"doc_id":7,"site_id":24},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":92},[93,97,100,104,109,114,119,124,129,132,136],{"id":20,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":94,"show_sort_weight":95,"slug":96},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":11,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":12,"show_sort_weight":98,"slug":99},80,"literature",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":101,"show_sort_weight":102,"slug":103},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":105,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":106,"show_sort_weight":107,"slug":108},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":110,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":111,"show_sort_weight":112,"slug":113},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":115,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":116,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":118},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":120,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":121,"show_sort_weight":122,"slug":123},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":125,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":126,"show_sort_weight":127,"slug":128},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":127,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":130,"show_sort_weight":127,"slug":131},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":133,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":134,"show_sort_weight":133,"slug":135},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":137,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":138,"show_sort_weight":105,"slug":139},19,"General","general"]