SOURCE: Hsia, C. T. “A Dream of Red Mansions.” In Approaches to the Asian Classics, edited by Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom, pp. 262-73. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990.

In this essay, Hsia introduces Hung-lou men, translated often as The Dream of the Red Chamber or as A Dream of Red Mansions, to a Western reading audience. Hsia argues that the novel is the culmination of the development of the Chinese novel through the Ming and early Ch'ing period, drawing from earlier landmark works including Chin p'ing mei.

The Chinese novel Hung-lou meng is customarily known in English as The Dream of the Red Chamber (with or without the initial particle) because earlier partial translations bear this rather enigmatic title. Today, however, its continuing use is unjustified since we have a complete translation in three volumes by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang (Peking: Foreign Languages Press...