Cao Xueqin

c. 1715 – c. 1763

Cao Xueqin (c. 1715-1763) was a Chinese writer of the Qing dynasty, author of Dream of the Red Chamber (Honglou Meng), widely regarded as the greatest of the classic Chinese novels. Born into a wealthy family of imperial textile commissioners that fell from favor, he spent his later years in poverty near Beijing writing and revising his unfinished masterpiece.

Comparing
Compare

Lived at the same time

Well-documented people whose lives overlapped with Cao Xueqin.

Life events

Born into the wealthy Cao family, probably in Nanjing
c. 1715

Cao Xueqin was born around 1715 into the Cao clan, hereditary bondservants of the Qing imperial household who held the lucrative post of Imperial Textile Commissioner in Nanjing.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Birth ✓
Family fell from imperial favor under the Yongzheng Emperor
1727

The Yongzheng Emperor ordered the Cao family's property confiscated over debts and mismanagement, ending decades of wealth and privilege.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Other ✓
Moved with his family from Nanjing to Beijing
c. 1728

After the confiscation, the impoverished Cao family relocated to Beijing, where Cao Xueqin grew up in reduced circumstances.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Relocation ✓
Lived by selling paintings and through the help of friends
c. 1740

In adulthood Cao supported himself precariously in Beijing as a painter of rocks and landscapes, remembered by friends for his wit, poetry, and fondness for wine.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Career ✓
Wrote and repeatedly revised Dream of the Red Chamber
c. 1745 – c. 1763

Over roughly a decade Cao composed and revised Honglou Meng, reportedly reworking the manuscript five times; the first eighty chapters circulated in hand-copied manuscripts during his lifetime.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Achievement ✓
Settled in the western suburbs of Beijing
c. 1750

Cao moved to a village near the Western Hills outside Beijing, where he lived in poverty during his final years.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Relocation ✓
Death of his son
c. 1762

Cao's young son died around 1762, a loss said to have plunged the writer into grief and illness in his final months.

Personal ?
Died near Beijing, leaving his novel unfinished
c. 1763

Cao Xueqin died around 1763 (some sources say 1764), leaving Dream of the Red Chamber incomplete; the version published in 1791 added forty chapters edited by Gao E and Cheng Weiyuan.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Death ✓