Hung Lou Meng

A discarded stone gains awareness and becomes the starting point for an account of family life in China. After meeting a Buddhist monk and a Taoist priest, it acquires a history that brings dreams and visions into the affairs of a cultured household. The opening gives particular attention to the women whose talents and actions the writer wishes to remember, and describes a story containing poems, riddles and love affairs.

H. Bencraft Joly's English translation presents this first book through both an imaginative frame and detailed social exchanges. Chia Chen arranges the purchase of an official appointment for his son while noble visitors and relatives assemble during mourning. The attention to payments, inherited rank and ceremonial obligations gives the domestic scenes a public dimension. Readers interested in Chinese fiction can explore how personal memories, spiritual ideas and the management of family standing occupy the same pages.