A Research On The Formation Of Editors Group From Private Publishing Services In China(1897-1949)

With the deepening reform of publishing industry in China, we achieve the accelerating of enterprization, scale and collectivize development, increasing improvement of publishing industry chain, continuously enhance of the core competitiveness, however,at the same time,all kinds of problems have exposed in the process we are touching the stone across the river, thus they attract more and more attention. The topic of " two faces of press" constantly causes extensive discussions in academia and industry.Therefore, accelerating the pace of publishing industrialization in China, meanwhile, how to balance the relationship between "cultural ideal" and "commercial interests" become more and more important. Since the end of the 19th century, Commercial Press and a group of modern presses has gone through more than one hundred years of ups and downs. Thus it will bring important theoretical value and practical significance by studying their birth and development process, and analyzing the publication idea and experience of these old publishing houses.This paper includes mainly four parts:In the first part, it mainly discusses the background of the emergence of private publication editors group in China. This paper deeply analyzes the change of politics, economy, culture and social environment,from three aspects of the accelerating of modernization in China, the differentiation of traditional literati class and change of publishing services in the late Qing Dynasty, and try to find out the clue on Chinese modern publishing industry from small to large.In the second part, it mainly discusses three social sources of the editors group of private publication, apprentices in church publishing industry, traditional literati class and professors and young students from universities in China or abroad. At the end of 19th Century, Chinese modern publishing industry was just born, the church apprentice is the main source. Then with the differentiation of the traditional literati class, traditional literaties became a main source of editors group of Chinese private publication. Since 1920s, the editors group of Chinese private publication improved in the terms of knowledge structure, professional quality and so on, as more and more domestic university proffesors, graduates and returned students from abroad joined.In the third part, it focuses on the formating process of editors group from private publishing services in China. Since the Commercial Press found in 1897, Chunghua Book Company, World Press, Dadong Press and Kaiming Bookstore etc., arose successively in China, and during different historical periods, many large and small private publishing companies emerged; by 1949, the press number in China had reached more than 1000. Along with the development of the private press, the editors group in private publisher expanded gradually, who came out from both traditional society and abroad, however,they all chose publishing as a platform to realize their life values, eventually it formed a professional characteristic editors group of private publication.In the fourth part, it explore the implications that we attained from the editors group of private publication during the first half of the 20th century from five aspects:cultural ideal in the commercial profit, institutional norms in the market competition, self-regulation in many chaoses of publishing, publishing link in multiple business of press, and world vision in local plowing. To today’s publishers,these experiences are worth going deep into reflection."All history is contemporary history". Today, Chinese publishing industry seems to be back to the market situation that the publisher had faced before 1949. We will confront with the question that how we develop in gambling between the cultural ideal and commercial profit,at present and in the future. It may be wise to discover the future from history, and make progress in the reflection.