vintage book a dream of red mansions tsao hsueh-chin and kao ngo volume 2 1978 foreign languages press 1st edition hardcover classics chinese literature historical fiction romance novel
"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 were sharpening.
This classic novel (an erotic tale of love, sex and passion) is a masterpiece of realism takes as its background the decline of several related big families and drawing much from the author's own experiences. It is a book about political struggle, a political-historical novel. Cao Xueqin focused on the tragic love between Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu and, in the meantime, provides a panorama of the lives of people of various levels in the degenerating empire. The author's family were close to the Ching imperial house in general, and with Emperor Kang-hsi in particular. He died in 1763 without having finished his novel.
It stands out in the world literature ranking with "Hamlet" and "War and Peace."
This is the first English translation of the complete text of this classical Chinese novel. Translated by Yang Hsien-yi and his British wife Gladys Young with many full-page illustrations by Tai Tun-Pang. The translation appears in three volumes of forty chapters each.
Title: A Dream of Red Mansions, Volume One
Author: Tsao Hsueh-Chin and Kao Ngo
Translator: Yang Hsien-Yi and Gladys Yang
Illustrator: Tai Tun-Pang
Hardcover: 701 pages
Printing: 1st
Publisher: Foreign Languages Press (1978)
Language: English
Condition: Very Good + (See Condition Notes)
Condition Notes: Vintage illustrated hardcover in unclipped jacket, with original slip cover. Black and red boards with gilt lettering and illustrations. Text and pages clean and unmarked. Book, jacket and slip cover have light shelf & handling wear. Some edge wear to dust jacket, mainly to top and bottom of spine. Some shelf/handling wear to slipcover. A nice illustrated copy of this 1978 edition of the 2nd Volume in the Chinese literary classic A Dream of Red Mansions.