Vintage Penguin Classics Set
Title: The Story of the Stone (The Dream of the Red Chamber) — Complete 5-Volume Set
Translated by: David Hawkes (Volumes 1–3) & John Minford (Volumes 4–5)
Publisher: London & New York: Penguin Books (Penguin Classics)
Format & Binding: Softcover, cohesive set featuring the iconic vintage black-spine covers adorned with classical Chinese pictorial art plates.
Description:
This collection represents the absolute pinnacle of Chinese-to-English literary translation: the historic first complete, unabridged 120-chapter translation of Cao Xueqin's crowning masterpiece, The Dream of the Red Chamber. Spearheaded by the legendary Oxford sinologist David Hawkes and brilliantly completed by John Minford, this translation is universally celebrated for its poetic fluidity, scholarly rigor, and masterful rendering of Qing dynasty cultural nuances.
This particular set is highly desirable for containing the vintage Penguin Classics printings from the late 1970s and 1980s, which collectors highly prefer over contemporary reissues for their superior paper stock and classic cover layouts. It bears an institutional stamp from "The Book Thing of Baltimore" on the intro leaf; otherwise, the text blocks are beautifully clean with a warm, uniform age patina. A marvelous acquisition for universities, institutional libraries, and connoisseurs of elite world literature.
漢學里程碑收藏版
【書名】 《石頭記》（紅樓夢）英文全譯本（全套1-5冊完結）/ The Story of the Stone: The Dream of the Red Chamber
【譯者】 大衛·霍克斯 (David Hawkes) 譯1-3卷；閔福德 (John Minford) 譯4-5卷。
【出版】 倫敦/紐約：Penguin Books (Penguin Classics)
【裝幀特色】 經典黑底平裝版（Black-spine Classics），封面選用極具東方美學的中國古典仕女與花鳥畫，比當代新版更具收藏質感。
【文獻價值與內容概述】
這套書是西方漢學史上跨時代的里程碑。著名漢學家霍克斯與閔福德翁婿兩代人，歷時十餘年，首次以近乎完美的現代英語，將曹雪芹與高鶚的120回宏篇巨著完整、生動地呈現給西方世界。譯者不僅精準傳達了書中的詩詞神韻、複雜的人物關係，更完美復刻了中國傳統宗法社會的文化細節，被公認為英語世界中最具文學價值的《紅樓夢》定本。
本套書收集了1970至1980年代的早期印本，內頁呈現自然的歲月黃暈，字體考究。內頁蓋有巴爾的摩本地圖書公益組織印章，但不影響整體閱讀。對於熱愛中西比較文學、漢學收藏以及海外華人家庭而言，這是一套擺在書架上極具分量、不可或缺的傳世名著全集。
