Dream of Red Mansions: Volume I

A Dream of Red Mansions (Hung Lou Meng, sometimes translated as The Dream of the Red Chamber), the great classical Chinese novel written in the mid-eighteenth century during the reign of Emperor Chien-lung of the Ching Dynasty, has been widely popular throughout the last two hundred years and more. The Ching Dynasty (1644-1911) was the last feudal dynasty in China. Although it saw a period of relative stability, feudal society was already on the decline and all the contradictions inherent in it …