What is this?
This is a new English translation of 紅樓夢 (Dream of the Red Chamber), China’s greatest novel, one scene at a time. It comes with the notes, poems and history you need to enjoy it.
Dream of the Red Chamber is my favorite work of fiction in the history of world literature. It’s 120 chapters long, has hundreds of characters, and is packed with poems, puns and allusions that even Chinese readers need help with. I’m translating all of it, slowly. We’re currently in Chapter 20.
You don’t need to read Chinese, and you don’t need to know anything about the book. If you do, great! You’ll find plenty here for you too.
Why another translation?
Yes, I know all about David Hawkes’s The Story of the Stone and the Yangs’ A Dream of Red Mansions. Both are famous, and both are worth reading. But both also add, cut or change things for reasons that aren’t always clear. Here you get my translation, plus a look at what Hawkes and the Yangs did with the same lines. You don’t have to take my word for any of it.
I translate from the 1792 程乙本 (Cheng-Yi edition), the standard text of the novel for well over a century. I check the online text against scans of the original printing and post the scans with each passage.
How it works
Posts go out almost every day, alternating between two sections:
The Novel has the translation itself, one passage at a time, in order. Each passage has four parts:
The Translation
The Chinese Text, with scans of the 1792 edition
Reading Notes on the names, jokes, customs and allusions, in the order they come up
The Other Translations: how Hawkes and the Yangs handled the same passage
In the Margins has essays and short explainers on what makes the novel tick. That includes its poetry, its characters, its history, and how it compares with books and shows you already know. The name is a nod to the novel’s first readers, who wrote their comments in the margins of the manuscripts.
The Podcast comes out once a week. Each episode starts with a recap of the week in the story.
To find your way around:
Start Here helps you pick where to begin.
The chapter pages list every passage of each chapter in order, starting with Chapter 1.
Characters has free guides to the main characters, without spoilers.
Free and paid
About two posts a week are free, including some of the novel’s most famous scenes.
A membership is $5 a month or $50 a year, with a 7-day free trial. Members get every passage with its full notes, every essay, the full podcast, and the files library. The library has editions of the novel and other study material, and it keeps growing.
If you’d like to do more, the Translation Patron plan lets you choose your own price above the annual plan. I will include your name on the Acknowledgements page as a reward.
You can also give a subscription as a gift. Group subscriptions are available for classes and reading groups.
More from the project
YouTube: videos on the novel, plus some on learning Chinese.
Files: the members’ library.
Leaderboard: readers who’ve brought in the most new subscribers. Refer three friends and you get a free month.
Archive: every post, newest first.
Who’s writing this
I’m Daniel Evensen. I spent 16 years as a U.S. diplomat, serving multiple times in China as well as in Canada. I’m fluent in English (obviously), Chinese, German, and Korean, and am building fluency in numerous other languages. I was a double major in International Relations and Chinese at Brigham Young University and took part in BYU’s Chinese Flagship Program, which included extensive time in China. I’ve lived in and traveled around China since 2006.
You’re wrong!
If you find a mistake, please leave a comment and let me know. Don’t be shy, and don’t worry about hurting my feelings. Don’t worry if English isn’t your first language, either. I’m happy to work in whatever language helps.
I’m going to make mistakes. Please make your comments public so that others can benefit from your insights. Comments never close, so feel free to comment on a post from months or years ago.
My hope is that we can turn this project into a group discussion, something that was unimaginable before the internet. Come join in!
