A Dream of Red Mansions, also known as Dream of the Red Chamber. The Story of the Stone, or Chronicles of the Stone is one of the masterpieces of Chinese fiction. It was composed sometime in the middle of the eighteenth century during the Qing Dynasty. Its authorship is attributed to Cáo Xuěqín (Cao Zhan), though the last forty chapters of the work were apparently created later by another author. The novel is usually grouped with three other pre-modern Chinese works of fiction, collectively known as the Four Great Classical Novels. Of these, A Dream of Red Mansions is often taken to be the zenith of Chinese classical fiction.

It is believed that the novel is semi-autobiographical, mirroring the fortunes of Cao Xueqin's own family, and was intended to be a memorial to the women Cao knew in his youth: friends, relatives, and servants.

The novel provides a detailed, episodic record of the two branches of the wealthy and aristocratic Jia clan — the Rongguo House and the Ningguo House — who reside in two large, adjacent family compounds in the capital Beijing. Their ancestors were made dukes, and as the novel begins the two houses are among the most illustrious families in the capital. One of the clan's offspring was made an Imperial Consort, and a gigantic landscaped garden is built to receive her visit. The novel describes the Jias' wealth and influence in great naturalistic detail, and charts the Jias' fall from the height of their prestige, following some thirty main characters and over four hundred minor ones. Eventually the Jia clan falls into disfavor with the Emperor, and their mansions are raided and confiscated.

In the story's frame story, a sentient Stone, abandoned by the goddess Nüwa when she mended the heavens aeons ago, begs a Taoist priest and Buddhist monk to bring it with him to see the world. The Stone and Divine Attendant-in-Waiting are separate beings (while in Cheng-Gao versions they are merged into the same character).

The main character, Jia Baoyu (whose name means "precious jade"), is the adolescent heir of the family, a reincarnation of the Divine Attendant-in-Waiting. The Crimson Pearl Fairy is incarnated as Baoyu's sickly cousin, the emotional Lin Daiyu, who loves Baoyu. Baoyu, however, is predestined in this life to marry another cousin, Xue Baochai. This love triangle against the backdrop of the family's declining fortunes forms the main story in the novel. When the young Jia Baoyu, finally grows up, the paradise-like home of his childhood is destroyed and his friends are scattered to the four winds.