The celebrated Chinese classic novel is a masterpiece of realism written in the middle of the-eighteenth century. Taking as its background the decline of several related big families and drawing much from his own experiences, the author Cao Xueqin (?-c.1763) 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. But he left the work unfinished (or the last 40 chapters lost). Gao E (c.1738-c.1815) completed the work some years later in much of Cao's spirit and also put in his own revelation, which aroused protracted controversy throughout centuries. Exposing social evils, the book cries out denunciation against the feudal system. All techniques of literary merit developed in previous periods have been incorporated into the great work with much originality. It stands out in the world literature ranking with Hamlet and War and Peace.

《紅樓夢》是中國最偉大的一部古典長篇小說。它描寫瞭一個由盛而衰的貴族大傢庭中的愛情婚姻悲劇，並以此為中心，展開瞭一幅廣闊而生動的社會曆史生活畫麵，塑造齣賈寶玉、林黛玉等眾多光彩奪目、令人難以忘懷的人物形象。《紅樓夢》以其宏大精緻的小說結構，博大精深的文化內涵，以及齣色的語言藝術，被公認為中國古典小說藝術的頂峰。

《紅樓夢》成書於18世紀中葉，作者曹雪芹性格傲岸、纔華橫溢，使這部小說的個性色彩十分濃厚。小說曆經10年寫成，八十迴以後惜未傳，現存後四十迴由高鶚續成。《紅樓夢》成書後流傳極廣，版本極多，從成書伊始，它就吸引瞭一大批知名的文人學者去評論和研究它，並形成至今仍很活躍的一門專學——“紅學”。

《紅樓夢》從19世紀至今，已被譯成多種文字在全世界流傳。本譯本係中國著名的文學翻譯傢楊憲益、戴乃迭夫婦所譯，它是一部最接近原著的《紅樓夢》英文全譯本。