Publishers Note A Dream of Red Mansions (Hung Low Meng, sometimes trans tated as Tbe dream of tbe Red Chamber), the great classical Chi- neae novel written in the mid-eighteenth century during the reign of Emperor Chien-lung of the Ching Dynasty, has been widely pular throughout the last two hundred years and more. It was no accident that such a work should appear during he Chien-lung era(r736-9,). It was the product of class con- tradictions and class struggles in that period of Chinese be Cling dynasty(164-4-19 ) was the last feudal dynasty in China. Although it saw a period of relative stabilit dal society was already on the decline and all the contradictions inherent in it were sharpenin The entire state apparatus of this dynasty in the main took over the form of the feudal autocracy of the Ming dynasty Cr368-1644), the political power remaining in the hands of the feudal landlord claIs. In that sense it was a continuation and development of the feudal political power of the Ming autocracy. At the start of the Ching Dynasty, the social economy was gravely disrupted by years of warfare; but from the eighteentH century onwards che measure taken by the ruling class to re store production led to a certain rehabilitation and develop- meat. By the last decades of the reign of Emperor Kang (1662-r722)agriculture had not only recovered but was fairl thriving, while the last years of his reign and the reigns of Yung-cheng (723-35 and Chien-lung witnessed fresh progreas not only in agriculture but also in mining, the textil ilc ind ceramics, printing and other fields, the textile industry actually surpassing the heights it had reached in the sixteenth century. During this period commerce and foreign trade expanded too