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.

《红楼梦》是中国最伟大的一部古典长篇小说。它描写了一个由盛而衰的贵族大家庭中的爱情婚姻悲剧，并以此为中心，展开了一幅广阔而生动的社会历史生活画面，塑造出贾宝玉、林黛玉等众多光彩夺目、令人难以忘怀的人物形象。《红楼梦》以其宏大精致的小说结构，博大精深的文化内涵，以及出色的语言艺术，被公认为中国古典小说艺术的顶峰。

《红楼梦》成书于18世纪中叶，作者曹雪芹性格傲岸、才华横溢，使这部小说的个性色彩十分浓厚。小说历经10年写成，八十回以后惜未传，现存后四十回由高鹗续成。《红楼梦》成书后流传极广，版本极多，从成书伊始，它就吸引了一大批知名的文人学者去评论和研究它，并形成至今仍很活跃的一门专学——“红学”。

《红楼梦》从19世纪至今，已被译成多种文字在全世界流传。本译本系中国著名的文学翻译家杨宪益、戴乃迭夫妇所译，它是一部最接近原著的《红楼梦》英文全译本。