A Dream of Red Mansions

This celebrated Chinese novel is a masterpiece of realism written in the middle of the eighteenth century. Set against the decline of several related big families and drawing much from personal experience, the author Cao Xueqin focussed on the tragic love between Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu. The story also paints a picture of the varied lives of people in a degenerating Empire. However, the work was left unfinished and Gao E completed it some years later. The book exposes social evils and is a denunciation of the feudal system.