"Hawkes's English version [of the Hong lou meng] is not a perfect translation, to be sure, but in terms of accuracy, of style, of suppleness of language, of felicity of expression, and, above all, of imaginativeness and creativity, it is unrivalled by any other version, whether English, French, German, Italian, or Spanish. If, as many translation theorists believe, every age has to translate anew the classics for itself, of all the versions of the Hong lou meng in the five major European languages mentioned, Hawkes's is the best qualified to be considered the version for our age. In a word, it is a version which Cao Xueqin would have been proud and delighted to acknowledge as the truly worthy companion to his masterpiece."