A dream of red mansions volume ii

CAO XUEQIN (1715-1763), was born into a noble and powerful family, which was reduced from extreme prosperity to poverty. He contemplated the decline of his family and discovered that the society had grown rotten from the inside. Thus he started to write his novel “The Story of the Stone” (later renamed “Dream of Red Chamber”) regarded as the pinnacle of the Chinese classical novel. Of its 120 chapters, the first 80 were written by Cao Xueqin, while the last 40 chapters were thought to have been written by Gao E. Though. Certain difference can be discerned in Gao E's sequel, in respect to ideological content and artistic achievement, it still basically follows Cao's original plan and makes the novel an integral whole. “Dream of the Red Chamber” (1791) is a novel with great cultural richness. It depicts a multi-layered and tragic world of humans through the eye of a talentless stone the Goddess used for sky mending.