Cao Xueqin

Cao Xueqin
Statue of Cao Xueqin in Beijing
Born	1715 or 1724 Nanjing, China
Died	1763 or 1764 Beijing
Occupation	Novelist, poet, philosopher, painter
Chinese name
Chinese	曹雪芹
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Cáo Xuěqín Wade–Giles Ts'ao2 Hsüeh3-ch'in2 IPA [tsʰǎu ɕɥètɕʰǐn] Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Chòuh Syut-kàhn Southern Min Hokkien POJ Chô Soat-khîn Tâi-lô Tsô Suat-khîn
Courtesy name
Traditional Chinese	夢阮
Simplified Chinese	梦阮
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Mèngruǎn

Cáo Xuěqín ([tsʰǎu ɕɥètɕʰǐn]; Chinese: 曹雪芹); (1715 or 1724 – 1763 or 1764) was a Chinese writer during the Qing dynasty. He is best known as the author of Dream of the Red Chamber, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. His given name was Cáo Zhān (曹霑) and his courtesy name was Mèngruǎn (simplified Chinese: 梦阮; traditional Chinese: 夢阮).

Cao Xueqin was born to a Han Chinese clan that was brought into personal service (as booi aha or bondservants) to the Manchu royalty in the late 1610s. His ancestors distinguished themselves through military service in the Plain White Banner (正白旗) of the Eight Banners and subsequently held posts as officials which brought both prestige and wealth.

During the Kangxi Emperor's reign, the clan's prestige and power reached its height. Cao Xueqin's grandfather, Cao Yin (曹寅), was a childhood playmate to Kangxi while Cao Yin's mother, Lady Sun (孫氏), was Kangxi's wet nurse. Two years after his ascension, Kangxi appointed Cao Xueqin's great-grandfather, Cao Xi (曹璽), as the Commissioner of Imperial Textiles (織造) in Jiangning (present-day Nanjing), and the family relocated there.

When Cao Xi died in 1684, Cao Yin, as Kangxi's personal confidant, took over the post. Cao Yin was one of the era's most prominent men of letters and a keen book collector. Jonathan Spence notes the strong Manchu element in the lives of these Imperial Household bond servants. They balanced the two cultures: Cao Yin took pleasure in horse riding and hunting and Manchu military culture, but was at the same time a sensitive interpreter of Chinese culture. By the early 18th century, the Cao clan had become so rich and influential as to be able to play host four times to the Kangxi Emperor in his six separate itinerant trips south to the Nanjing region. In 1705, the emperor ordered Cao Yin, himself a fluent poet, to compile all surviving shi (lyric poems) from the Tang dynasty, which resulted in The Complete Poems of the Tang.