At a more profound level, the author explores religious and philosophical questions, and the writing style includes echoes of the plays and novels of the late Ming, as well as poetry from earlier periods.

Copies of his uncompleted manuscript circulated in Cao's social circle, under the title Story of a Stone, in slightly varying versions of eighty chapters.

[5] These hand-copied manuscripts circulated first among his personal friends and a growing circle of aficionados, then eventually on the open market where they sold for large sums of money.

A branch of Redology, known as tànyì xué (探佚學), is focused on recovering the lost manuscript ending, based on the commentators' annotations in the Rouge versions, as well as the internal foreshadowings in the earlier 80 chapters.

Beijing Normal University and the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences both also held manuscripts of the novel that predate the first printed edition of 1791.

This was also the first "complete" edition of The Story of the Stone, which they printed as the Illustrated Dream of the Red Chamber (Xiùxiàng Hóng Lóu Mèng 繡像紅樓夢).

However, during the mid-20th century, the discovery of a 120 chapter manuscript that dates well before 1791 further complicated the questions regarding Gao E and Cheng Weiyuan's involvement—whether they simply edited Cao Xueqin's work or actually wrote the continuation of the novel.

"[14] In 2020, Zhang Qingshan, the president of the academic organization Society of the Dream of the Red Chamber, stated that although the authorship of the novel's last 40 chapters remains uncertain, it is unlikely Gao E was the one who wrote them.

[15] In the novel's frame story, a sentient Stone, left over when the goddess Nüwa mended the heaven aeons ago, wants to enjoy the pleasures of the "red dust" (the mundane world).

One of the Jia daughters is made a Royal Consort, and to suitably receive her, the family constructs the Daguanyuan, a lush landscaped garden, the setting for much of subsequent action.

As the carefree adolescent male heir of the family, Baoyu in this life has a special bond with his sickly cousin Lin Daiyu, who shares his love of music and poetry.

Baoyu, however, is predestined to marry another cousin, Xue Baochai, whose grace and intelligence exemplify an ideal woman, but with whom he lacks an emotional connection.

[26] As one critic points out, the couplet signifies "not a hard and fast division between truth and falsity, reality and illusion, but the impossibility of making such distinctions in any world, fictional or actual.

Early Chinese critics identified its two major themes as those of the nature of love, and of the transitoriness of earthly material values, as outlined in Buddhist and Taoist philosophies.

"Mansion" is one of the definitions of the Chinese character "樓" (lóu), but the scholar Zhou Ruchang writes that in the phrase hónglóu it is more accurately translated as "chamber".

[36] The eminent scholar Wang Guowei, however, achieved a new method of literary interpretation in an innovative and path-breaking 1904 essay which invoked the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer.

[41] But in 1954 Mao personally criticized Yu Pingbo for his "bourgeois idealism" in failing to emphasize that the novel exposed the decadence of "feudal" society and the theme of class struggle.

[43] The novel continues to be influential on contemporary Chinese poets such as Middle Generation's An Qi, who paid homage to it in her poem To Cao Xueqin.

[44] ... one of the great monuments of the world's literature ...Cao utilizes many levels of colloquial and literary language and incorporates forms of classic poetry that are integral to the novel, making it a major challenge to translate.

[48] In 1842, Karl Gützlaff's article, "Hung Lau Mung, or Dreams in the Red Chamber", in the sixth volume of the "Chinese Repository", included translation and criticism of some passages.

[56] Although Clemons felt "meaning was only fragmentarily revealed" in the English translated prose and that "many of the incidents" and "much of the poetry" were omitted, he nevertheless thought "at any rate the effort to read The Dream of the Red Chamber is eminently worth making.

"[45] Kenneth Rexroth in a 1958 review of the McHugh translation, describes the novel as among the "greatest works of prose fiction in all the history of literature", for it is "profoundly humane".

[59] Bramwell Seaton Bonsall finished what is probably the first complete 120 chapter translation in the 1950s, Red Chamber Dream, but publication was abandoned when Penguin announced the Hawkes project.

[66][67] The sinologist Oldřich Král also undertook a Czech translation of the entire novel, Sen v červeném domě (Prague: Odeon, three volumes, 1986–1988).

That is, Hawkes tries to maintain the range and contrasting levels of usage of the original while the Yangs smooth out the language with a "plain international English" and add explanations in footnotes.

[71] According to Barry Lee Reynolds and Chao-Chih Liao, the Yangs' version contains more faithful translations of religious expressions but is also less readable to English language readers.

[74] Modern (post-1949) continuations tend to follow after the eightieth chapter, and include those by Zhang Zhi,[75] Zhou Yuqing,[76] Hu Nan[77] and Liu Xinwu.

A reworked version was performed in 1982 in Beijing by China Opera and Dance Drama Theatre featuring lead dancer Chen Ailian.

Producer and director Wang Fulin's decision in employing non-professional young actors was vindicated as the television series gained enormous popularity in China.

In the 2023 video game Limbus Company created by South Korean studio Project Moon, character Hong Lu is based on Dream of the Red Chamber.