Hung Lou Meng, or, the Dream of the Red Chamber, a Chinese Novel, Book I

by Xueqin Cao

Produced by Juliet Sutherland and Project Gutenberg

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HUNG LOU MENG, BOOK I

OR, THE DREAM OF THE RED CHAMBER, A CHINESE NOVEL IN TWO BOOKS

BY

CAO XUEQIN

Translated by H. BENCRAFT JOLY

BOOK I.

PREFACE.

This translation was suggested not by any pretensions to range myself among the ranks of the body of sinologues, but by the perplexities and difficulties experienced by me as a student in Peking, when, at the completion of the Tzu Erh Chi, I had to plunge in the maze of the Hung Lou Meng.