The Tale of Kiều is an epic poem in Vietnamese written by Nguyễn Du (1765–1820), well known in Vietnamese literature. The original title in Vietnamese is Đoạn Trường Tân Thanh, but it is better known as Truyện Kiều.
A 1932 copy of Kim Vân Kiều tân truyện published in Hanoi, is better known as Truyện Kiều (Tale of Kiều).
Illustration of Thúy Kiều meeting Kim Trọng (19th century painting)
Painting depicting scenes of Thúy Kiều and Thúy Vân in Tết Thanh Minh (Qingming Festival)
A painting depicting a scene from The Tale of Kieu at the Independence Palace
Chữ Nôm is a logographic writing system formerly used to write the Vietnamese language. It uses Chinese characters to represent Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary and some native Vietnamese words, with other words represented by new characters created using a variety of methods, including phono-semantic compounds. This composite script was therefore highly complex and was accessible to less than five percent of the Vietnamese population who had mastered written Chinese.
A page from the bilingual dictionary Nhật dụng thường đàm (日用常談; 1851). Characters representing words in Hán (Chinese) are explained in Nôm (Vietnamese).
A page from The Tale of Kieu by Nguyễn Du. This novel was first published in 1820 and is the best-known work in Nôm. The edition shown was printed in the late 19th century.
The second page of Tam tự kinh lục bát diễn âm (三字經六八演音) with the original Literary Chinese text on the top, and Vietnamese translation on the bottom. The Vietnamese text is written in chữ Nôm and lục bát (六八) verse form.