The Four books extraordinary ( 四大奇書 ) are regarded as more the great classics of the Romance Chinese.

They are by chronological order:

• History of the Three Kingdoms (三國演義 or 三国通俗演义) (14th century)
• At the edge of water (水滸傳) (between the middle of the 13th century and the 15th century?),
• the Voyage in Occident or Peregrination towards the West (西遊記) (16th century),
• the Dream in the red house or history of Pierre (紅樓夢) (1791)

Some consider Jin Ping Mei or Fleur out of gold flask (金瓶梅) (1610) like the fifth of these four traditional. Besides it replaces sometimes the Rêve in the red house in the preceding list.