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The end of the 18th to the beginning of the 20th century saw an encounter between two high civilizations, the Chinese and the Western. The innumerable discourses of the time reveal that the mutual curiosity of both sides was immense and comparable. The larger impact of European literature is documented by the larger number of translations into Chinese compared to translations from Chinese into Western languages. Hongloumeng was among the first representative literary works to be introduced to Western readers. This paper examines early Western reception and critique at a time when there was no full translation available. It sees a polarization between supporters and opponents of Hongloumeng. The discourse on Hongloumeng was used as a means to interpret Chinese literature or even Chinese culture as a whole. At the beginning of the discourse, a few opinion leaders in both civilizations shaped the key judgment that the other literary culture was inferior to their own. Despite cultural differences, the need for change in Chinese society and the attractiveness of the "modernity" of Western culture lead to a modernization of Chinese society. It took a century to get to know each other better, to change attitudes from ethnocentric to dialectical, to stop exploiting the novel and to come to the insight that Chinese literature with Dream as one of its masterpieces was not only comparable to other world literatures but also could bring value to Western readers. This paper concentrates on the phase between the early reception of Dream in the West since 1815 and the first full translation, which appeared in 1929. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]