Paper and Print Technology

Abstract

Although the novel is often considered a Western genre, South and East Asian literature was populated by many comparable antecedents in print, be they historical romances, fictional narratives, extended short stories, or hybrid literary forms. In China, the rise of vernacular fiction from the fourteenth century paved the way for Hung‐lou‐meng (1791, Dream of the Red Chamber) , attributed to Cao Xueqin. This domestic novel, with its enormous cast of characters and detailed observation of mid‐eighteenth‐century court life, loves, and society, is considered one of China's four great classical novels, along with Shuihu zhuan (1614, The Water Margin) and San‐guoyanyi (1552, Romance of the Three Kingdoms) , by Luo Guanzhong, and Xiyou‐ji (1592, Journey to the West) , by Wu Cheng'en. It circulated privately in scribal forma common practice‐until 1791, when it was first printed using movable type.