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Rainbow Bridge Graded Chinese Reader: Level 5: 1500 Vocabulary Words: A Dream of Red Mansions (abridged)
Considered encyclopedic due to its detailed descriptions of upper class life in the 18th century Qing Dynasty China, this masterpiece is one of China's Four Great Classical Novels, and it vividly narrates the rise and fall of the aristocratic Jia family. An exceptionally large cast of major characters — such as Jia Baoyu, Lin Daiyu, Xue Baochai, and Wang Xifeng — are depicted in a way that is at once vivid and cutting. Their stories of joy, sorrow, love, and hatred are universally known throughout China.