《紅樓夢》面世之後，作者是誰這個問題，從清代的讀者開始，到當代的讀者，一直是紅學熱門的問題，但卻留下莫衷一是的詮釋成果。細觀這些詮釋成果，在作者概念部分，可以發現有小說家、所有權作者、小說作者三種詮釋的處理概念軌跡。
因此本文採取以小說家、所有權作者、小說作者為檢視中心概念，《紅樓夢》作者、清代的讀者至胡適、余英時為檢視範圍，探討他們各自的「小說作者」概念為何？理論內涵為何？彼此間的匯通為何？代表了怎樣的現代化進程？

Since the appearance of Dream of the Red Chamber, the question “who’s the author” has always been the hot issue of redology among readers from Qing Dynasty to contemporary society. However, no consensus has been reached in interpretation results. With careful study of these interpretation results, the concept processing track of novelist, copyright writer and novel writer can be found in the author’s concept section.
Thus, this study takes novelist, copyright writer and novel writer as the central concept for inspection, which includes the author of Dream of the Red Chamber, readers in Qing Dynasty, Hu Shi and Yu Ying-shih. The respective concept, theoretical connotation and the communication between the “novelist” are explored. In the study of these “novelist” of Dream of the Red Chamber, the modernization process of research concept from “historical investigation” to “genre aesthetics” is observed.