Cao Xueqin

Cao Xueqin (Chinese曹雪芹, * 1715-1724; ? † 1763 ()) was a Chinese writer and author of the Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber.

Life

Cao came from a Han Chinese family, who belonged to the Manchu eight banners. Cao Cao Yin Xuěqíns grandfather was considered a companion and confidant of the Qing Emperor Kangxi, making it brought the family to great prosperity. The luck of the CAOS turned only with the inauguration of Kangxi Yongzheng 's successor, the 1728 in the wake of political purges confiscated the goods of the caos and forced her to move to Beijing. Xueqin was only nine years old.

Comparatively little is known about Xuěqíns own life. He spent most of his life in great poverty in the West of Beijing, where he chatted with the sale of own pictures on water. He also worked occasionally as a teacher at a school for the children imperial Manchu nobleman and banners people.

Work

Cao has become known by a single work, which, however, has found its way into the world literature: The novel Dream of the Red Chamber. According to friends, he has written more than ten years on it, presumably in the period shortly before the middle of the century. In Cao's death in 1763 only 80 of the planned 100 chapters were written. The manuscript was completed by Gao E and 1791 issued in a 120- chapter version.

Unabridged editions

• Cao, Xueqin / Gao, E ( Tsau, Hsueh - Chin / Gau, Ë ): The Dream of the Red Chamber or The Story of the Stone, Translator Rainer Schwarz / Martin Woesler, European University Press, ISBN 978-3-86515-010 - 3, 3 volumes, hardcover, bound LXXXVII, 2188 S., 2007-2009
• Cao, Xueqin / Gao, E ( Tsau, Hsueh - Chin / Gau, Ë ): The Dream of the Red Chamber or The Story of the Stone, Translator Rainer Schwarz / Martin Woesler, European University Press, ISBN 978-3-89966-500 - 0, paperback, xxvi, 2195 p, xxi, 2009

Abridgment

• The Dream of the Red Chamber, Translator Franz Kuhn, Insel Verlag, 1932, ISBN 978-3-458-33472-9, Paperback, 831 pp. ( heavily cut - by about two-thirds)