To the Editor of the NontH-CHINA Datty News," first issue of the Sunday News" came morning and was heartily On its Book Page, I found J. D.'s review of Mr. Wang Chi-translation of the "Dream of the Red Chamber" in which the reviewer tode exception to some of my Hdeas on this famous Chinese classic, I always welcome criticism but his criticism does not seem to have been based on a careful study of the jstorical facts which I have taken presented in the prefaces to novel, In the first place, J.D. was wrong in saying, that its author Ts'o heehin flow about the When we say and-s6
"fourished" time, the date given usually in-Gieates his best years of activity. In the present case, I have proved that 'Ts'o Hsueh-eh'in died on February 12, 1763, and that he was born about the year 1717, (Crescent Moon" vol. 1, no. 1, p. 118). So we cannot say that' he "flourished" about 1719, In the second place, J.D. desires to refute my view that the novel was essentially autobiographical in character. He prefers the view that, it was "a skit" on the court of the famous emperor K'ang Hsi In: support of this, the reviewer maintains that "all the scenes are on a high level such as would be unknown in the family of a poor scholar, which the author undoubtedly was." This is most sur prising since J.D. professes to have known my prefaces to this ook In these prefaces, I have taken pains to prove that the author, though he died in great poverty, was born in a very wealthy and influential family. He was the grandson of Ts'ao Yin (1058-1712) was was Imperial Commissioner of Textile Fabrics in Soochow. and Nanking for over twenty years and was for many years concurrently Commissioner of Salt at Yangchow, both of which were among the most remunerative posts in the empire. He was a poet of high repute and 'a very famous collector of books. He was so rich that he was able to play the most ruinous part of a host to the Emperor K'ang Hsi during four of his six visits to Nai King (1699-1707), visits which al-tost impoverished the Yangtze Delta Ts'no Yin's two sons succeeded him in the Commissionership of Textile Fabri until 1728 when the author of the "Dream of the Red Chambir" was about 12 years old, if not -older. There is no doubt that our author was born and brought up in this environment of great wealth and comfort and refinement which he recalled and told in his last years of destitution and disillusionment and which he called dream," for a dream it must have scented to him then when he actually had to beg for a drink.
Many wild theories have been invented to interpret this great novel, simply because none of these critics has ever taken the trouble to find out who its author was and what his family history was like, So deep-rooted was the belief in the author being a mere poor scholar that all the orities have completely ignored his own words at the opening of this novel clearly stating that his book was to be autobiographical, For some years I had thought that my researches had closed the, case once for all. But I now see that I was mistaken and that superstitions are not easy to overthrow.
Tam, ete,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.