The Rise of Private Publishing Industry in the Late Qing Dynasty and Its Significance

Modern private new publishing was gradually developed under the impetus of social external forces and technical and economic forces, which was 40 years later than church publishing and 10 years later than westernization publishing. Yin Shi Bookstore and Dianshizhai Bookstore, which are characterized by technological innovation, opened the prelude to private publishing, while Wentong Bookstore and Baishishan Bookstore opened the river of private publishing. Private publishing focuses on the publication of newspapers, books, translated works, textbooks and novels, and the ultimate basis is to obtain rich profits. The rapid rise of private publishing made it one of the three major publishing subjects in the late Qing Dynasty. This is a reflection of the social transformation of the publishing industry, an inevitable choice for the natural development of the publishing industry, a sensor of the culture of the times and an important part of modern culture. Key words: private publishing in the late Qing Dynasty; Newly published; Church publishing; As an ancient industry, Westernization Publishing's transformation in modern times is synchronized with the social and cultural development in modern China, and it is a small process in the process of social and cultural transformation. In the interaction with social culture, it constantly shapes new industrial forms and new cultural functions. The new quality of modern publishing is often called. Newly published? . There are several different forms of new publishing, and private publishing is a little later than church publishing and westernization publishing for its own reasons. First, privately published in? Newly published? Historically, the start of China's new publishing did not come from the maturity of the internal conditions of traditional publishing, but from the strong promotion of external forces. New publishing originated from the publishing activities of foreign missionaries. After the Second Opium War, the Qing government was forced to carry out the Westernization Movement for the purpose of self-improvement, and new publishing institutions run by China people appeared, such as the Translation Office of Shi Jing Wentong Museum and the Translation Hall of Jiangnan Manufacturing General Administration. However, private new publishing did not enter the historical stage until the 1970s of 19. This is at least 40 years later than church publications and 10 years later than westernization publications. As an ancient publishing subject type, private commercial publishing institutions have been absent from the new publishing production form for so long, which is worth exploring by future generations. The private and commercial nature of private publishing is the combination point that we should pay attention to. First of all, from the social background, the failure of the Opium War, though it completely defeated the people of China? China's great power? In my dream, there are also several visionaries who woke up and set off before the great changes that have never happened in this Millennium. Open your eyes and see the world? But most people, still sleeping, continue to shake their heads and chant Buddhist scripture. It takes a long time for people to accept the main carrier form of western learning and its new publications. It's hard to sell something that everyone doesn't like and strongly rejects. Westernization people run a new publication, not because it can be profitable, but because of the needs of the Westernization Movement itself, and even to a large extent, it is of a public welfare nature. It is unrealistic to expect a public welfare undertaking to be undertaken by private publishing enterprises, at least in the early modern times. Secondly, from the perspective of peer competition, missionaries came from the East with new technologies. Although it is also a new publishing peer, church publishing has no intention of squeezing the traditional publication market, whether it is to spread content or serve the target, so it does not pose a threat to existing publications. Only in the1880s, when foreign lithographic publishing houses reprinted traditional books on a large scale, and the price was much cheaper, the fate of traditional publishing was in jeopardy. The new technological transformation of private publishing really began at this time. Third, from the perspective of printing equipment, the printing equipment and materials on which the new publishing technology depends are all imported. In the case that the Westernization Movement and modern industrialization have not yet started, these new equipment are not easy to obtain, and the transformation of private publishing and printing technology is not available at the moment. Fourthly, judging from the investment in the early stage of technical transformation, the new printing equipment is not cheap. Traditional sculptors, who have always been thin, may not be able to try new things even if they have the heart. /kloc-After the 1980s, people who invested in lithograph publishing, such as the Xu Run brothers in the Documentation Department and Li Shengduo of the prestigious British Museum, were all wealthy businessmen or officials. As a traditional workshop, Suzhou Sweeping Leaf Mountain House has an old brand and relatively strong capital, so it is possible to set up a semicolon in Shanghai and publish books with lithograph technology. Fifth, from the perspective of publishing cost, because the initial printing quantity of books is generally small, the lead type casting technology and reprinting technology are still being improved, and the cost of lead printing books is not lower than that of traditional engraving, but only when it is used to print newspapers that do not need reprinting, it shows the cost advantage, so modern lead printing technology was first applied to news newspapers, not to book publishing in a general sense. In this way, we can understand why government-run publications like Shi Jing Wentong Museum and Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau Translation Hall, which have no worries about funds, choose the traditional way to print translations. In commercial private publishing, the consideration of economic interests is the most important, and unintentional publishing technology innovation is reasonable. Second, the rapid rise of private new publishing during the New Deal in the late Qing Dynasty 1872 was an important year in the history of press and publication. Ernest Major, a British businessman, founded Shenbao, the oldest newspaper in the history of China. Ernest Major in order to put his possessions? Big plate? , using the printing ability of the declaration hall, from newspapers to books, engaged in the publication of books and periodicals, first set up publications such as Ying Huan Xiao Ji, and then set up Dianshizhai Bookstore to print books and periodicals. In the meantime, in order to expand the distribution, Shenchang Painting and Calligraphy Room (later renamed Shenchang Bookstore) was established to specialize in sales, and Shenchang branches were established in Beijing, Nanjing, Hankou and Hangzhou. Dianshizhai is the first publishing enterprise to make lithograph publishing bigger and stronger through commercial means. Dianshizhai Pictorial, founded in May, 1884, is a unique way to graft art and news with artificial painting and attach importance to new knowledge of current events. Widely welcomed by readers, it has been sold for 15 years. It is an outstanding representative of early pictorial in China and a famous magazine in the modern publishing history of China. Its lithograph books, such as Kangxi Dictionary, were profitable, which triggered domestic private capital to open their own bookstores one after another, set off a large-scale lithograph book craze, and opened the prelude to private new publishing. Therefore, from the perspective of the publishing history of books and periodicals, the establishment of Shenbao has the same significance. /kloc-In the early 1980s of 0/9, Wentong Bookstore and Baishishan Bookstore were founded, becoming the three largest lithograph bookstores with the same reputation as Dianshizhai. Wentong Bookstore was founded by Xu Run, a Cantonese brother living in Shanghai. It has 12 lithographs and employs 500 people. Its scale can be imagined. His representative lithographs, such as The Palace of Twenty-four Histories, Collection of Ancient and Modern Books, Learning from the Same History, Pei Fu, Kangxi Dictionary, etc. , were masterpieces of the publishing industry at that time, and the stock printing method used in printing these masterpieces pioneered the collection and publication in the late Republic of China, so Wentong Bookstore occupied an important position in the modern publishing history. Some scholars listed Wentong Bookstore as a link between the past and the future in the birth of modern private publishing industry in China, which has its historical basis. Driven by the three major bookstores, Yin Shi Bookstore rapidly expanded from Shanghai to the whole country. According to the records of Booksellers, China Series and China Popular Fiction Bibliography, from the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, hundreds of people used Yin Shi technology to print books all over the country. Private lithograph publishing house, which is characterized by technological innovation, has reprinted some western books with the convenience of lithographs, and compiled such series as Self-improvement of Western Learning, Series of Western Politics, Series of Quality Research, Series of Western Learning, etc. But generally speaking, the contents of its publications are still concentrated on traditional reading materials and business books. Even books in western languages are mainly reprinted rather than newly published. The function of old wine in new bottles is more to squeeze and replace the old traditional publishing, rather than to expand and innovate the new publishing market. All this happened in the last few years at the end of 19, and the situation has changed dramatically. The most important event was 1894' s fiasco in the Sino-Japanese War and the national crisis, which directly triggered the publicity and organization activities around the theme of political reform and reform in the following years. In this in full swing movement, the reformists used newspapers and books as propaganda tools to encourage people's feelings, introduce western learning and enlighten new knowledge. Deep-water bombs, especially the publication of early newspapers, opened up public opinion. 1On August 7th, 895, the World Bulletin created by Kang Youwei was published in Beijing. In June of the same year 165438+ 10, Beijing Strong Society was established. Priority report priority? In, World Bulletin was renamed Chinese and Foreign News as the organ newspaper. 1896 1 month, Shanghai Qianghui was established, and then the Journal of Qianghui was officially published. Especially in August of the same year, The Times, with Wang as the prime minister and Liang Qichao as the main pen, unveiled the banner of political reform and survival, with a clear attitude and thorough discussion. Most of the words were fresh and smooth, rich in * * *? Within a few months, it sold more than 10,000 copies, which was unprecedented since it was reported in China, and the whole country followed like a water dispenser. . For a time, the publication of newspapers came together, and there was an upsurge of Chinese people competing to run newspapers. 1896? During the period of 1898, the circulation of newspapers in Shanghai, Tianjin, Changsha, Macau, Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Wenzhou, Guilin, Xi 'an, Hangzhou, Chongqing, Wuxi, Chengdu, Wuhu, Hengyang, Kaifeng, Wuzhou and Pingxiang was at least 60 copies. Although some of these newspapers have official backgrounds, they are basically private newspapers. The initial motivation of most newspaper owners, driven by the atmosphere of the times to save the country and survive, may be greater than the business plan, which basically belongs to politicians' running newspapers. However, objectively, it has aroused the general public's concern about the future of the country and the nation, promoted in-depth thinking about the limitations of its traditional knowledge structure, and then turned to pay attention to and absorb new knowledge of western learning. This demand is the market foundation for the survival and development of the emerging private publishing industry, which mainly publishes new books and periodicals. Taking this as a starting point, publishers translated and published western books, edited and published educational books, and translated and published novel periodicals, which constituted three main categories of new book publishing in the late Qing Dynasty. This is naturally different from the westernization movement, which mainly introduced western learning from the object level, because it mainly published scientific and technological books and the market was relatively narrow. Translation and publishing is the earliest field that missionaries set foot in, and it has always been the publishing category with the greatest achievements and influence in new publishing. By the end of the late Qing Dynasty, the number of translated publications had doubled. Someone did statistics, from 1900? 19 1 1 year, China translated at least 1599 books in Japanese, English and French, which was twice the total number of books translated in China in the previous 90 years. Liang Qichao once gave such a vivid description of the prevalence of translated works at that time:? 1898 coup, followed by the Boxer Rebellion, exposed the decline of the Qing Dynasty. The proportion of young students studying abroad is the same, and Japan, especially those who go there, is taking advantage of the situation. During the years of Renyin and Guimao, the translation and narration industry was particularly prosperous, with dozens of magazines published regularly. Every new book published in Japan has several translators. The input of new ideas is in full swing. So-called? Liang Qichao style? The investment is unorganized, has no choice, has no basis, and the faction is unknown, but it is more expensive and the society welcomes it. People who have lived in the disaster area for a long time, such as grass roots, bark, frozen birds, rotten mice, etc., are reluctant to do so and chew. They don't ask if they can digest it, if they can call in sick, and there are no good sanitary products to replace it. ? As far as textbook publishing is concerned, although as early as the end of 1990s in 19, Nanyang Public College and Wuxi Third Class School published some textbooks with relatively new contents, and both of them had a good market, but they were not perfect because of the original contents and lack of supporting facilities. After Gengzi, the Qing court reformed education, changed the academic system, especially abolished the imperial examination to promote learning, which brought a huge textbook market. Some private publishing institutions seized the opportunity in time, absorbed the editing experience of Japanese textbooks, and combined with their own characteristics, compiled new textbooks to meet the needs of the times. For example, the complete set of enlightenment textbooks published by 1902 Wenming Bookstore and the complete set of "latest textbooks" published by 1904 Commercial Press covering all subjects in primary schools are selling well, which makes these two bookstores suddenly emerge in the publishing industry, and the Commercial Press has therefore developed into the largest publishing institution in China. The attractive profits of textbooks published by the Commercial Press gave birth to China Integration Company led by Zhang Qian 1906, and the types of textbooks published are second only to those published by the Commercial Press. 1906, the Ministry of Education of the Qing government approved the temporary bibliography of primary school textbooks for the first time, with a total of 102, of which 85 were published by private publishing enterprises, accounting for more than 80% of all textbooks. According to the statistics of the department at that time, there were 37,888 schools in 1908, with1026,988 students, and the number of schools reached 47,895, with1300,739 students. The number of students in 1909 reached 3 1 626 720. It should be said that the huge textbook publishing market brought by the development of education has provided a solid economic foundation for the rise of private publishing industry. Novel publishing was originally one of the main books in the Ming and Qing dynasties, but it was Liang Qichao who really opened a new chapter in the history of novel publishing in China in 1902? Novel revolution? After that. The central theme of the novel revolution is enlightenment, so if we want to improve group governance today, we must start from the novel revolution; If you want a new person, you have to start with a new novel? In that highly politicized era, this thought was quickly echoed because it conformed to the theme of the times. Is the position of the novel moving from the edge of the literary road? The best of literature? The central movement is characterized by striking novel publishing. People call it:? Today's novels can't compete with western countries; But as far as China's theory is concerned, the fruit is getting brighter, which was unexpected by predecessors. ? According to A Ying's book Catalogue of Late Qing Opera Novels, 1898? 1 145 published as many novels as 19 1 1, exceeding the total number of novels published in the previous 250 years. According to Chen Dakang's statistics, in 1840? During the 72 years of 19 1 1, * * published 1 653 popular novels, 99 classical Chinese novels, 1 003 translated novels and 2,755 * *, among which1. 19 1 1 accounts for 2377 species in 9 years. During the New Deal in the late Qing Dynasty, there were at least 32 publishing houses named after novel clubs, and at least 20 publications named after novels. Just as the weather of textbook publishing in the late Qing Dynasty was new, it was based on the substantial increase in the number of students, and the surge in novel publishing was based on the rapid growth of urban citizens. The successive opening of trading port cities in the late Qing Dynasty and the gradual development of modern industrialization have brought about the intensification of urbanization and the increase of citizen class, and the publication of novels with citizen readers as the main market has also flourished, and in the later historical development process, with the change of their reading interest, it has gradually divorced from its political significance and developed in the direction of popularization. All these have virtually opened up a broad road for the acceptance and dissemination of new knowledge, new concepts and new ideas, and the new book publishing market thus displayed is an important commercial premise for the rapid rise of private publishing industry. Of course, the expansion of the publishing market is only one of the factors of the rise of private publishing industry in the late Qing Dynasty. The growth of writers and translators, the establishment of copyright system, the innovation of management, the change of publishing concept, the guidance of government policies, the improvement of traffic conditions and other factors are all important joint forces of publishing modernization transformation. This article cannot be discussed one by one. Third, the significance of the rise of private new publishing industry We can't know exactly how many private publishing institutions appeared in the late Qing Dynasty. We can only get a rough idea from some local statistics made by people at that time and later generations. 1987 No.4 Historical Journal published a file of the book industry association, which was an annex to the manuscript submitted by Dong Xiyufu, then general manager of Shanghai Book Industry Office. The annex lists the list of Shanghai publishing industry before Xinhai in detail (19 1 1). According to the author's statistics, there is 1 16. Xiong Yuezhi's comments on the book "Western Learning and the Late Qing Society" 1896? 19 1 1 year has made a detailed list of publishing houses that have translated Japanese, and the number of publishing houses is 95. Chen Dakang's Comments on Chronology of Modern Novels in China 1840? According to the statistics of 2 755 novels published in 19 1 1 year, there are 205 newspapers and periodicals, 393 bookstores and bookstores, and the publishing houses of 162 works are unknown. In particular, 88% of these novels. 78% was published in the last nine years of the late Qing Dynasty. Fifty years of Liang Changzhou (1897? 1949), an overview of primary school textbooks, lists the publishing institutions of textbooks in the late Qing Dynasty collected by the Commercial Press, and the author makes statistics, including 109. In his doctoral thesis "Research on Publishing Industry during the New Deal Period in the Late Qing Dynasty", Huang Lin commented on 1902? During the period of 19 1 1, there were nearly 80 publishing houses that advertised in Ta Kung Pao. Statistical data obtained from various channels are more or less overlapping. There are independent businesses, affiliated schools, societies and newspapers, but from the list, most of them are private. The rise of private publishing in the late Qing Dynasty can be reflected in these figures. As the leader of private publishing industry, the rocket-like development speed of commercial press is also a case of the rise of private publishing industry. The Commercial Press was established in 1897. At the beginning, the capital was only 3 750 yuan. 190 1 Increase the shares and expand the scale, and increase the capital to 50,000 yuan. 1903 cooperated with Japan's Jingangtang, absorbing Japanese capital of 654.38 million yuan and becoming a joint venture company with a capital of 200,000 yuan. Two years later, the capital increased to 6,543,800 yuan. 1907, the Commercial Press built a general factory covering an area of more than 80 mu in Baoshan Road, Zhabei, including four printing houses and a compilation office. By the first year of the Republic of China191year, the turnover reached1676,052 yuan. The number of books published in People's Republic of China (PRC) before, according to the bibliography listed in the book reportNo. 10 [Commercial Press], received 865 kinds of books, that is to say, the number published by Commercial Press in the first year of the Republic of China was at least not lower than this figure. English reading materials such as The Beginning of Hua Ying and Advanced Hua Ying, social science translation books such as Imperial Series, Political Science Series, Geography Series, Finance and Economics Series, War History Series, Business Studies Series, primary and secondary school textbooks such as The Beginning of Literature and the Latest Textbook, novels translated by Lin, and the rise of private publishing industry represented by the Commercial Press and civilized bookstores are of great significance in the history of publishing. First, it means that the new publishing industry introduced to China by missionaries has experienced the change of publishing subject again, from the beginning of the dominance of church publishing institutions, to the coexistence of church and government-run new publishing during the Westernization Movement, to the formal establishment of the leading position of private publishing under the diversified publishing subject during the New Deal in the late Qing Dynasty, and finally settled down and continued throughout the Republic of China. This new round of macro publishing pattern also means a new round of adjustment of publishing and production relations. With the participation of folk cultural forces and the operation of folk capital, the publishing vitality has been released to a great extent. Secondly, private publishing institutions actively use new publishing technology to improve publishing productivity from the perspective of commercial operation; Pay close attention to the dynamics of market demand and publish a large number of new knowledge and new content books that promote the changes of the times; Strive to expand the scale of production and fully implement the capitalist mode of operation. All these have strengthened the new quality of the new publication from different aspects. Because of its great achievements, it marks the initial completion of the modernization transformation of the publishing industry. Thirdly, the leading role of private publishing is the result of natural selection in the development of publishing industry, which adapts to the production characteristics of capitalism and shows strong economic vitality, thus the publishing industry has embarked on the direction of industrialization and become an important category in modern national economy. Fourthly, the private publishing activities in the late Qing Dynasty not only gave birth to modern emerging industries, but also acted as a sensor of the political and cultural trend of the times. Under the situation of deepening ethnic contradictions and increasingly complicated political struggles, all kinds of political forces and people who care about the national economy and people's livelihood have taken up publishing as weapons, or called for saving the country, or shouted for enlightenment, or made suggestions for politics, or begged for people's lives. Different publishing purposes and pursuits interpret the colorful modern publishing culture. Publishing is not only in the changing situation of China's ideological culture, but also affects the knowledge acquisition, cultural leisure and ideological change of national life, and has become an indispensable part of modern cultural undertakings. In short, the private publishing industry in the late Qing Dynasty changed from the early stage? Insufficient degree? The rapid rise and development is the result of the adjustment of publishing subject in the history of modern publishing, the result of market operation and the result of natural selection in the development of publishing industry, which has become an indispensable part of modern cultural undertakings.