The house where Mao Dun was born in 1896 and spent his childhood is a preserved example of a prosperous Jiangnan merchant's residence — deep wooden rooms arranged around courtyards, with carved screens and latticed windows typical of late Qing construction in the region. The adjacent Mao Dun Memorial Hall covers his literary and political career through photographs, manuscripts, and first editions of his major works.
Mao Dun (born Shen Dehong) was one of the most important writers of twentieth-century China, whose novels chronicled the transformation of traditional society under capitalism and then revolution. His most famous work, "Midnight," set in 1930 Shanghai, remains one of the great Chinese novels of the Republican period. The museum is thoughtfully arranged and gives the literary context that makes wandering through the preserved townscape around it more meaningful.