![]() ![]() It seems to me ridiculous to try to believe that Gao E sat down and wrote the last 40 chapters.Preface (dated 27 December 1791) to the first Cheng-Gao edition of Dream of the Red Chamber, as translated by John Minford in The Story of the Stone: The Debt of Tears (Penguin, 1979), Appendix I, p.As you are at a bit of a loose end, and in need of a restorative, will you share the labour with me?'Īlthough it was only a novel, the book contained nothing contrary to the tenets of Confucian teaching, and so I gladly accepted, and fell upon the task with the eagerness of the Persian slave when he saw his pearl! Now that the work is done, I have described these circumstances for the reader's information. ![]() Bit by bit I have pieced it together, with a view to publishing it for fellow-lovers of the novel. ![]() 'This,' he said, 'is the fruit of my labours over several years. In the spring of this year, my friend Cheng Weiyuan came to see me and showed me the complete text that he had purchased. Reading it (in this incomplete state) was indeed a tantalizing experience. I was once lucky enough to borrow a copy from a friend.
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