Cao Xueqin: One book, listed as 22 distinct works

[Zadignose]

I recently asked a question about what to do with abridged translations, in the thread Translated Abridgment and got the response that I should not combine the only English translation of a work, which is severely abridged, with the other editions of the original Italian language work. But this leaves open the question of what to do about the "works" of Cao Xueqin.

He is currently listed as having 22 distinct works, and these works consist of around 145 editions. However, these are ALL versions of the same book, with the one single exception being a Cliff Notes book about this one famous book.

The combining of editions seems to have been handled in a completely haphazard manner. The most popularly shelved and reviewed "distinct work" in the list has 78 editions. But the primary edition is a severe abridgment... and also the most commonly read English version. It is 352 pages in length. It is combined with other editions of the same basic abridgment by the same translator, plus abridgments by other translators, plus multi-volume sets, versions claiming to be complete, including works of over 2,500 pages in length. At the same time, the other "distinct works" are simply various other translations, or single volumes from within a multi-volume series of translations of this one work, and they are combined with other texts of various lengths, in various languages, grouped according to no scheme whatsoever.

For example, the 2nd most popular "distinct work" is The Story of the Stone, Vol. 1 which consists of 28 "editions", some of which are truly other editions of Penguin's Vol. 1, but others of which are just a random selection of other publications, some complete, some abridged.

Just to make it clear what we are working with here, it should be understood that Cao Xueqin has only one surviving book in print. He may have only written one book. But this book--which has been known alternately as "Dream of the Red Chamber," "Dream of Red Mansions," "Story of the Stone," "A Dream of the Red Mansion," "Red Chamber Dream," and "Hóng Lóu Mèng"--is regarded as one of four classic Chinese works which pretty much define Chinese literary culture. It should be regarded as being as significant to Chinese culture as, say, Hamlet is for English culture, or The Divine Comedy is for Italian culture. So we ought to try to get this right, and it may be a significant precedent for how to handle works in multiple translated versions which differ textually by length and content.

[Renske]

If you think certain editions are wrongly combined according to the goodreads policy, those should be separated and combined with the right editions. Or if you want an other opinion if certain books are correctly combined give the links to those books.

If your problem is about the rules for combining in general you can start a discussion about that. Or look first to previous discussions.

I don't see any major errors with the combining of these books.

[Lobstergirl]

I also noticed what the OP is talking about when "Dream of the Red Chamber" was removed from a Listopia for not having sufficient ratings (one of the listopias where you vote for books with 1,000 ratings, or 10,000 ratings, something like that). I had voted it onto the list myself, so I knew at that time it had sufficient ratings to be on the list. What had happened was that someone had uncombined a number of editions, so that the number of ratings for the edition I shelved had precipitously dropped.

I mentioned it in a thread myself awhile back, but I don't think it got any attention. I don't know enough about this author, this work, or the different editions to really tackle the problem. I would like to see a solution. But bear in mind that few librarian edits last forever, there is no way to "freeze" a correct solution in place. Someone will come back and change it eventually.

[Helmut]

Renske wrote: "I don't see any major errors with the combining of these books. "

Well, I do see many errors that occurred probably because some librarian simply combined all books that are translations of Hongloumeng and have some sort of volume number in the title into one. BUT - volume 1 of the Hawkes translation (which consists of 5 volumes) is not even closely the same as volume 1 of the Project Gutenberg edition (which consists only of 2 volumes).

The problem mainly arises from the fact that multi-volume editions of a text are, in fact, not standalone works - they're a single book split up because of technical reasons. But as long as GR doesn't support the grouping of multi-volume works, I don't see a real solution for that dilemma...

[Lobstergirl]

Zadignose wrote: "I recently asked a question about what to do with abridged translations, in the thread Translated Abridgment and got the response that I should not combine the only English translation of a work, which is severely abridged"

And this is not even correct, it's long been GR policy to combine abridged editions with full-length editions.

[Helmut]

Lobstergirl wrote: "And this is not even correct, it's long been GR policy to combine abridged editions with full-length editions. "

That's something new and unexpected to me - where can I read more about it?

[Lobstergirl]

Helmut wrote: "Lobstergirl wrote: "And this is not even correct, it's long been GR policy to combine abridged editions with full-length editions. "

That's something new and unexpected to me - where can I read mo..."

Well oddly I can't find it in the librarian manual, but here's confirmation in a random thread:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Lobstergirl]

Oh yes, here's the thread I started. I guess no one knew anything about the book....

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Helmut]

I'm flabbergasted... personally I think that's a very wrong decision.

Now what about re-tellings? Excerpting works which cite only parts of the original work?

[Zadignose]

Renske wrote: "If your problem is about the rules for combining in general you can start a discussion about that. Or look first to previous discussions."

I guess this is what it comes down to. I don't think I can determine with any certainty what the rules for combining may be in such a case. The Librarians' Manual didn't specifically address these issues, and it seems there have been contrary ideas and approaches pursued in the past. Perhaps this could become the discussion regarding the rules of combining. It's not that I have a problem with them in the sense of disagreeing with them (at least not yet!). It's that I don't think it's sufficiently clear what they are.

[Renske]

A re-telling is an adaptation as far as I know, and adaptations are not combined with the original.

I said that I didn't see major errors, because in some case people combine 1 of 3, 2 of 3 and 3 of 3 al together with the whole book. But if some of the part 1 edition are 1 of 2 and others are 1 of 5 they should be separated.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Lobstergirl wrote: "And this is not even correct, it's long been GR policy to combine abridged editions with full-length editions."

While that's true, in the particular case cited, it was not the usual sort of abridgement, but one which resulted in a book about 20% the length of the original. That's closer to an adaptation (which we do not combine) than a normal abridgement.

Any member of this group can propose additions or changes to the Manual by starting a thread in the folder for that purpose.

[Zadignose]

This clearly needs more work, but this seems to be what the list of works is approaching. Please advise as how best to proceed in this particular case:

-Dream of the Red Chamber combines "books" which purport to tell the complete story, including abridgments, multi-volume sets sold with one ISBN, translated into various languages, by various translators. There are around 83 editions here.

-The David Hawkes and John Minford translation as "Story of the Stone" has also been published in five separate volumes which can be uniquely identified:
- - -The Story of the Stone, Vol. 1: The Golden Days
- - -The Story of the Stone, Vol. 2: The Crab-Flower Club
- - -The Story of the Stone: The Warning Voice - Volume 3 of 5
- - -The Story of the Stone: The Debt of Tears - Volume 4 of 5
- - -The Story of the Stone: The Dreamer Wakes - Volume 5 of 5

Each of these "books" is currently combined with editions of the same volume of the same series by the same translator, though published by different publishers.

-The Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang translation as "A Dream of Red Mansions" has been published in three separate volumes:
- - -A Dream of Red Mansions - Volume 1 of 3
- - -A Dream of Red Mansions - Volume 2 of 3
- - -A Dream of Red Mansions - Volume 3 of 3

Each of these is currently a "unique work" by Cao Xueqin. This is the tip of the iceberg, but I'll catalogue the other major "unique works" in a few hours when the opportunity presents itself.

[Zadignose]

Continuing the Catalogue:

-The Henry Bencraft Joly translation is a two volume work in the public domain, so it has been published by a large variety of publishers:
- - -Hung Lou Meng, Or, the Dream of the Red Chamber. Book I
- - -Hung Lou Meng, Book 2

-There is a Swedish Translation in Three Volumes, each listed as a distinct work by Cao Xueqin:
- - -Hongloumeng Guldåldern Del 1, Drömmar om röda gemak
- - -Hongloumeng Silveråldern Del 2, Drömmar om röda gemak
- - -Hongloumeng Kopparåldern Del 3, Drömmar om röda gemak

-ReadHowYouWant has published The Story of the Stone, but there's no indication of who the translator is. Their books appear to be print on demand, as buyers can select the font size of the book that they receive. The Story of the Stone appears to have been released in series of between three volumes and six volumes, and I don't think there's any clear way to reconcile which part of the book is covered in "Volume 1 of 3" as opposed to "Volume 2 of 6," etcetera. So, in some sense, this company can turn Cao Xueqin's one book into an almost unlimited number of "distinct works," all nominally "by Cao Xuequin." Examples:
- - -The Story Of The Stone Volume 1 Of 6 Dream Of The Red Chamber: Easy Read Super Large 20pt Edition
- - -The Story of the Stone Dream of the Red Chamber, Volume I

-Penguin Released a 96 page book "The Dream of the Red Chamber", "translated" by David Hawkes (The guy responsible for the five-volume complete version published as Story of the Stone). This appears to be a summary version of the story by Cao Xuequin.
- - -The Dream of the Red Chamber

-A selection of 100 episodes from Cao Xuequin's book has been published in English and Chinese in this bilingual text:
- - -Selected Readings from the Story of the Stone: A Bilingual Version

-An e-book anthology exists which contains the entirety of Cao Xuequin's book along with many other Chinese books in English transation (I would assume all public domain, and thus likely including the Joly translation, but that's just an assumption):
- - -Anthology of Chinese Literature

Our System currently includes Volume 2 of a French Language version, and who knows how many volumes the complete set would come to:
- - -Le Rêve dans le pavillon rouge - Tome 2 - Récits LXIII-CXX

-An art book contains 230 paintings by Sun Wen as illustrations to the Story of the Stone, and this book contains excerpts from the text of Cao Xueqin's book. Interestingly, Sun Wen is not listed as an author:
- - -A Dream of Red Mansions: As portrayed through the brush of Sun Wen

-There is a Cliffsnotes guide to Cao Xueqin's book. I'm not sure why this would be listed with him as author. Is that standard, for critical works and summaries to cite the author of the analyzed text as though he were author of the critical work?:
- - -Cliffsnotes Dream of the Red Chamber

And that accounts for most of the works which are currently listed as distinct works for this author. The distinct work above with the greatest number of combined editions currently has 83 editions.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Actually, I see no reason for Zhang Xiugui not to be the sole listed author of the Cliff's Notes.

[Zadignose]

Ah, that's helpful. I didn't know what the standard was for Cliffsnotes. I've edited that record now.

[Zadignose]

Among the other issues that abound, which may be difficult to resolve, is the presence of editions like this one:

The Story of the Stone, Vol. 1: The Golden Days

The cover art is from the Penguin edition, David Hawkes translation, and that seems to also be the source for the current title. But the author attribution is to Cao Xuequin and Henry Bencraft Joly. There is an ASIN, but that number cannot be found in a search of Amazon, Amazon-UK, or Google. It is also listed as a "Kindle Edition."

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Zadignose wrote: "There is an ASIN, but that number cannot be found in a search of Amazon, Amazon-UK, or Google. It is also listed as a "Kindle Edition.""

That usually means the Kindle edition is no longer for sale. (But we keep out-of-print editions, so it stays.)

Yup: http://www.amazon.com/Dream-Chamber-H...