Abstract:
In the late Qing Dynasty, The Shen Daily issued a series of advertisements for collecting books and essays, which now serve as precious historical materials to investigate the current novel market and situation of writing on the part of writers. The newspaper office collected book manuscripts from society by means of bookcollecting advertisement, which resulted in the appearance of The Highlighted Series of Books of the Shen Daily Office. This project earned fat commercial profits and especially caused an abrupt eruption of novel publication. It also greatly stimulated the writing of novels, particularly classic Chinese novels and led to an enthusiastic wave of novel writing in the mode of The Scholars in the times of Tongguang. The Shen Daily’s campaign of essay collection helped to get a large group of writers in the day headed by Wang Tao. This historical event showed the great need for novels in the novel market, and indicated the effects of newspaper advertisement for collecting books and essays as an economic dynamic factor on the novel writing in the day.
