Summary of the Ascendance of the Imprint of China

                                     Summary of The Ascendance of the Imprint of China

        In the Chapter “The Ascendance of the Imprint of China”, a series of questions, such as, “Does other kind of texts, rather than texts of civil service examination, used imprint more or manuscript more?”” When did imprint became main version of Chinese book?”” How imprint affects the production, consumption, and distribution of books?” are raised. From the two following quantitative research it was found that although imprint became popular, the manuscript was still remained and was used a lot. For example, in medicine field, among 12000 books, most of them were manuscript. In Inoue’s conclusion, only during the middle of 16th century the imprint permanently replaced manuscript and became the dominant method of transmitting written culture, but not in the latest 11th century or 12th century. Evidence suggested that the book printing process started slow in Song Dynasty, and only in some particular areas imprint largely replaced manuscript yet in other areas, the shift was far from evident, such as Yangzi river area.

        The author supported Inoue’s work and stated that it is not right to only focus on imprints alone and to assume that finally the prevalence of imprint would cause a decline even disappearance of manuscript. For example, in the late 20th century, there still have manuscript version of books. The author holds the opinion that ancient manuscripts still have deep influence upon today’s contents of Chinese imprints and that the manuscript and imprint should be considered as continuing partners.

        In order to further support the author’s point of view, four more specific questions are worth answering: “How big is the scale of personal and government libraries?” “In these libraries what was the portion of imprints?” “Was it easy or hard to get a particular book?” and “What were the relative costs of book production based on manuscript and imprint?”

        The scale of libraries fluctuated along the timeline due to natural disasters, wars and culture change. The manuscripts took larger proportion in the loyal family library in year 1177.  In the middle of 16th century, the imprint version increased but it’s proportion did not surpass manuscript’s proportion. From the cost perspective, during Song, Yuan, and early Ming period, there were less demand for imprint tests. Thus it was expensive for imprinter to imprint since they could not achieve economies of scale. In contrast, manuscript was relatively cheaper.  In the late 16th century, the imprint took main proportion. Before 16th century it was hard to get books, but when it comes to 16th century, the situation changed. In this period, people required more intellectual knowledge, prompting an expansion of philosophical concerns, which eventually reflected in imprints.  In mid-Ming period, non-philosophical imprints also were expanded. For example, Hanji, Tang Liudian, and Wenxian Tongkao were history tests which previously not extensively available in imprints, but their imprints version started to came out during mid-Ming. There are two reasons explained the situation that imprints became more popular. First, the number of people who took part in the civil service examination increased since late 15th century. The needs for exam related tests boosted imprints; Second, the needs for novels (for entertainment) increased, which also facilitated imprints. In the mean time, people did not stop using manuscript. Because people paid large or even more attention to the beauty of the written characters than the real content of the books. By the way, many scholars and book collectors agreed that the best way to master the content of a book is to make a hand-written copy. Even if a person cannot understand the whole material he made the manuscript of, he can finally master it by reread and memorize it again and again.