The Power of Print in Modern China

Intellectuals and Industrial Publishing from the End of Empire to Maoist State Socialism

Robert Culp

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780231545358
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

Amid early twentieth-century China's epochal shifts, a vital and prolific commercial publishing industry emerged. Recruiting late Qing literati, foreign-trained academics, and recent graduates of the modernized school system to work as authors and editors, publishers produced textbooks, reference books, book series, and reprints of classical texts in large quantities at a significant profit. Work for major publishers provided a living to many Chinese intellectuals and offered them a platform to transform Chinese cultural life.

In The Power of Print in Modern China, Robert Culp explores the world of commercial publishing to offer a new perspective on modern China's cultural transformations. Culp examines China's largest and most influential publishing companies—Commercial Press, Zhonghua Book Company, and World Book Company—during the late Qing and Republican periods and into the early years of the People's Republic. He reconstructs editors' cultural activities and work lives as a lens onto the role of intellectuals in cultural change. Examining China's distinct modes of industrial publishing, Culp explains the emergence of the modern Chinese intellectual through commercial and industrial processes rather than solely through political revolution and social movements. An original account of Chinese intellectual and cultural history as well as global book history, The Power of Print in Modern China illuminates the production of new forms of knowledge and culture in the twentieth century.

PART ONE

Recruiting Talent, Mobilizing Labor

CHAPTER I

Becoming Editors

Late Qing Literati’s Scholarly Lives and Cultural Production

4. Store up talent.

—Zhang Yuanji’s notes from a lunch meeting on goals for Commercial Press, March 27, 1916

In 1907 Sun Yuxiu was at loose ends.1 Son of a family of rural intellectuals from just west of Wuxi, Sun showed early academic promise. He won the xiucai degree in 1895, tested into Jiangyin’s new-style Nanjing Academy (Nanjing shuyuan 南菁書院) the same year, and gained higher stipend status in the 1896 examinations. But thereafter his progress stalled. He failed three successive provincial examinations at Suzhou and turned to traditional havens of unsuccessful literati—teaching and serving as a private secretary—but neither offered stable, long-term employment. Sensing the shift of intellectual climate, Sun studied English with a Protestant missionary and pursued whatever modern education he could. With the abrogation of the civil service examinations in 1905, Sun’s struggles deepened as he bounced from one uncertain short-term engagement to another, without even the hope of possible future examination success to motivate him.

As he floundered, Sun tried his hand at translating Carpenter’s Geographical Reader. In the course of shopping the manuscript to various publishers in the spring of 1907, Sun approached Commercial Press through an intermediary, who used the preface of the translation as an introductory text. Sun’s timing, for once, was fortuitous. Head of the Commercial Press Editing Department, Zhang Yuanji 張元濟, was recruiting scholars who could compile textbooks and reference books for the rapidly growing publisher, which was in the process of publishing textbooks for the newly launched modern Chinese school system. After a short meeting with Zhang, Sun was hired to a joint appointment in the Editing Department’s English Division and the Chinese Division for a monthly salary of one hundred yuan. The publisher also purchased one portion of the manuscript of his translation for two hundred yuan. Soon thereafter, Sun bought some Commercial Press stock, which vested him in the company. For the next sixteen years, until his death in 1923, Sun translated foreign texts, compiled children’s literature, evaluated classical editions for the library, and helped Zhang Yuanji prepare the classical reprint series Sibu congkan. In short, he found both a job and a career at Commercial Press.

He was not alone. For the generation of scholars left stranded by the end of the civil service examinations, the introduction of foreign learning, and ultimately the end of the imperial order, commercial publishing companies like Commercial Press and Zhonghua Book Company provided a vital career outlet from the first years of the twentieth century into the early 1920s. As each publisher built up an editing department to produce textbooks, reference books, and journals, it sought to recruit talented men with multiple skill sets, as the epigraph from Zhang Yuanji relates. Over years, if not decades, working for a publisher provided scholars like Sun with a steady income, an outlet for their scholarly activities, and a ready-made community of like-minded colleagues. In turn, this generation of classically trained scholars with reformist proclivities and some exposure to modern Western learning shaped the work culture of each publisher in decisive ways. This chapter explores the symbiotic relationship between China’s emergent commercial publishers and the last generation of late Qing literati during the first two decades of the twentieth century.

The Search for Talent

Xia Ruifeng 夏瑞芳 partnered with Bao Xian’en 鮑咸恩, Bao Xianchang 鮑咸昌, and Gao Fengchi 高風池 in 1897 to found Commercial Press primarily as a printing company.2 Opportunities for textbook publishing after the turn of the twentieth century compelled Xia to reach out to reformist literati based in Shanghai, first Cai Yuanpei 蔡元培 and then Zhang Yuanji, to head an Editing Department (bianyisuo) that could compile textbooks for the emergent school system initiated by the Qing New Policies in 1902 and 1904. Expansion of schools and growth of the textbook market compelled the publisher to hire new editors to compile textbooks.3 Commercial Press benefited in multiple ways from its location in Shanghai. The foreign concessions afforded some measure of protection against Chinese political authorities. As a gateway for the import of foreign technology, Shanghai allowed them ready access to advanced printing machinery. It also allowed them to acquire capital for expansion, as they did through a partnership with the Japanese textbook publisher Kinkōdō starting in 1903.4 Moreover, Shanghai was a key node in an expanding network of urban transportation centers that allowed Commercial Press to grow a nationwide system of branch stores and affiliated retailers to expand its market.5

Perhaps most important, though, was Shanghai’s location at the heart of the lower Yangzi region, which gave Commercial Press access to the extensive human capital constituted by the scholarly elite concentrated in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.6 Beginning in 1903, when Zhang became editorial director, through 1921, Zhang and Gao Mengdan, who succeeded him, actively recruited scholars, many of them from the Jiangnan region, to work in or for the Editing Department. Zhonghua Book Company, whose leaders worked first for Commercial Press, replicated many of the same patterns of scholarly recruitment after its formation in 1912. The result was that into the 1920s both companies depended primarily on late Qing literati to write, compile, translate, and edit their publications.

Surveying Zhang Yuanji’s detailed diary reveals a process of constant recruitment of compilers and editors that allowed Commercial Press to produce varied publications. Zhang’s entries during the 1910s show him managing on nearly a daily basis recommendations for prospective authors and editors from colleagues inside the publisher and his large network of acquaintances outside it. Zhang, Gao Mengdan 高夢旦, and other leading figures in the Editing Department, such as Jiang Weiqiao 蔣維喬, Zhuang Yu 莊俞, Du Yaquan 杜亞泉, and Sun Yuxiu, evaluated candidates’ capabilities in relation to the publisher’s ongoing publication agendas. Hiring involved complex determinations regarding whether to bring a scholar into the Editing Department full-time, keep them on retainer as a consultant or regular contributor, or pay them manuscript fees or royalties for particular projects. Zhang and his colleagues also considered salaries for particular individuals in light of the pay scales of editors and compilers doing similar kinds and quality of work in an effort to systematize compensation during the course of these decades.

Editorial staff came to Commercial Press mostly through recommendations. This approach privileged personal relational networks in a pattern inherited from the late imperial period, when personal secretaries and other professional staff were often chosen by recommendation and personal introduction.7 Once a scholar was introduced, Zhang and his colleagues considered the person’s background and experience, related them to various publication projects, and evaluated whether to hire them, in what capacity, and according to what pay scale.8 In each instance, Zhang considered the prospective candidate in light of his educational background and work experience to gauge his potential value to the company. But he also considered how much salary the candidate would command given his previous work record. Tan Lianxun 譚廉遜, with high school teaching experience and a recommendation from leading editor Jiang Weiqiao, could be hired with a salary of around forty yuan per month and was an easy choice.9 Dong Maotang 董懋堂 could demand a somewhat higher salary because of previous positions and required more careful consideration.10 At the same time, Zhang sought to relate candidates’ skills to particular projects or needs at the publisher. For instance, Zhou Jimei 周寄梅 had exceptional English skills for the time because of study at the University of Wisconsin, which made him an attractive hire.11

Hiring a scholar to work as a compiler or editor for the Editing Department staff constituted a long-term commitment and carried the expectation that the staff member would contribute to a range of projects. Zhang also contracted with scholars outside the company to do specific writing, compiling, translating, and reviewing tasks. Most commonly, the publisher bought finished manuscripts from scholars for fixed prices, which allowed it to secure copyright.12 Manuscript prices, depending on the length and complexity of the books in question, ranged from roughly one hundred yuan to several hundred yuan per volume. A consistent feature of Jiang Weiqiao’s work at Commercial Press during the first two decades of the twentieth century was to review manuscripts offered to the company for sale, revealing a constant flow of material into the publisher from outside authors.13 For shorter pieces, especially fiction and translation, Commercial Press paid authors or translators by set rates per thousand characters, which ranged from two to four yuan.14 Manuscripts were not always purchased with cash, however. Occasionally, authors were compensated, in whole or in part, in the form of a certain number of free books.15 Some authors also arranged to be paid in royalties.16 Once they had acquired a manuscript by purchase or royalties, companies could protect their right to be the sole publisher of a book by registering it with the Shanghai Booksellers’ Guild and the Shanghai Booksellers’ Trade Association, which Fei-hsien Wang argues played the key role of policing the book market during the Republican period.17

Beyond authors who either became permanent staff members or sold manuscripts from outside the publisher, Commercial Press also maintained a range of long-term consulting or contract relationships with many scholars, who were paid by salary or on a piecework basis for consistent part-time work. For instance, in 1912 for compiling dictionaries on a part-time basis, the company considered paying two scholars each salaries of one hundred and two hundred yuan per month.18 In another example, beginning in 1913, after several false starts with other prospective editors, Zhang hired Yu Shaohua 郁少華 to revise Commercial Press’s English-Chinese New Dictionary (Ying Hua xin zidian). Yu worked outside Commercial Press but was offered graduated payments of one hundred fifty yuan per period in which he would complete separate sections of the dictionary (up to G, up to N, up to S, and through the end).19 Whether paid piece rate or salary, in each of these instances scholars not formally on staff maintained a long-term relationship with Commercial Press.

All the hiring practices discussed here depended on interpersonal networks among literati.20 Leaders at Commercial Press, staff working in the Editing Department, or their friends and professional acquaintances outside the publisher recommended people for new staff positions or to contribute to specific projects. Those recommended could be friends, relatives, classmates, or residents of a common native place. Colleagues also recommended or recruited scholars known by reputation or by previous publications, whether they had been written for Commercial Press or other publishers. In all c...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part I: Recruiting Talent, Mobilizing Labor
• Part II: Creating Culture
• Part III: Legacies of Industrialized Cultural Production
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index