Female Publishing Activities From The16th To The Mid-19th Century

In the flourished publishing industry of the Ming and Qing dynasties, female participants played an active role. Their activities and achievements contributed greatly to the whole industry, which at the same time showed their unique cultural value. For a long time, however, academia paid little attention to these women and their publishing activities. From the perspective of publishing history, this paper tries to fill in the gaps by studying the publishing activities of women both inside and outside their families, revealing their distinguished contributions from the16th to the mid-19th century. With the support from their families, women had chances to participate in the publication of their own works, and they also began to assume responsibilities for publishing works of their relatives. Some women even took part in publishing other people’s works through family collaboration. Moreover, the open atmosphere of society in late Ming helped to expand the scope of women’s activities, and their publishing activities started to break the boundaries of family. Many female publishers helped to publish other women’s works. As a result of increasingly frequent association between women, they also tried to compile and publish anthologies by female authors. With further expansion of their social activities, some women attained opportunities to make friends with male literati, worked together with them in the publishing activities, and played an unneglected role in the process. By discussing the cultural contributions, creations and publishing activities of these female participants, this paper tries to evaluate their role in the Chinese publishing history properly.