Hung Lou Meng, Book I Or, the Dream of the Red Chamber, a Chinese Novel in Two Books

Hung Lou Meng, or Dream of the Red Chamber, composed by Cao Xueqin, is one of China's Four Great Classical Novels. It is considered to be a masterpiece of Chinese literature and is generally acknowledged to be the pinnacle of Chinese fiction. Red Chamber is believed to be semi-autobiographical, mirroring the rise and decay of author Cao Xueqin's own family and, by extension, of the Qing Dynasty.