Shanghai Public Moralist Nie Qijie and Morality Book Publication Projects in Republican China

With an emphasis on the compilations of Shanghai philanthropist Nie Qijie, this article examines the flourishing of morality book and popular moral prescriptive text publication in the early decades of the twentieth century. The mass production and dissemination of such ostensibly traditional didactic texts advanced, in large part, due to the interests and resources of new urban elites and the capacity of the Shanghai-centered modern publishing industry. In the course of this process, the uses and meanings of these books shifted, and their lessons in traditional ethics often affiliated age-old terms and concepts with emerging ideologies and social images identified with a new, urban modern world. These widely available texts, in effect, became scripts of public moralism that were readily available to and influential among those promoting elite and state-building projects.