TS'AO CHAN

born 1715?, Chiang-ning, China died Feb. 12, 1763, Peking Pinyin Cao Zhan, also called (WadeGiles romanization) Ts'ao Hseh-ch'in author of Hung lou meng (Dream of the Red Chamber), generally considered China's greatest novel. A partly autobiographical work, it is written in the vernacular and describes in lingering detail the decline of the powerful Chia family and the ill-fated love between Pao-y and his cousin Lin Tai-y. Ts'ao was the grandson of Ts'ao Yin, one of the most eminent and wealthy men of his time. In 1728, however, his family, which held the hereditary office of commissioner of imperial textiles in Nan-ching, suffered the first of a series of reverses and moved to Pei-ching. By 1742 Ts'ao's contemporaries reported him to be living in reduced circumstances and engaged on a work that could hardly be anything other than the Dream. The author had finished at least 80 chapters of the novel before his death. The work was completed by Kao Eh, about whom little is known.