Zhonghua Book Company

The headquarters of Zhonghua Book Company in Fuzhou Road, Shanghai, China in 1916.

Chunghwa store in Kwun Tong District, Hong Kong.

Zhonghua Book Company (simplified Chinese: 中华书局有限公司; traditional Chinese: 中華書局有限公司; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Shūjú Yoǔxìan Gōngsī), formerly spelled Chunghwa, is a Chinese publishing house that focuses on the humanities, and especially on classical Chinese works. Its headquarters are located in Beijing.

History

The company was founded in Shanghai in 1912-01-01 as the Shanghai Chunghwa Book Company (上海中華書局有限公司) by Lubi Kui, a former manager of the Commercial Press, another Shanghai-based publisher that had been established in 1897. From the year of its foundation to the birth of the People's Republic of China in 1949, it published about 5,700 titles, excluding reprints.^[1]

Chunghwa's punctuated editions of the Twenty-Four Histories have become standard. The publishing project, which started in 1959 on a suggestion by Mao Zedong, was completed in 1977. A revised edition of the entire set integrating the most recent scholarship on the Histories is being prepared.^[2]

Subsidiaries

• Chung Hwa Book Company, Limited (台灣中華書局股份有限公司): Originally established in 1945 in Taipei, Taiwan. In August 1949, the Chung Hwa Book's Shanghai headquarter was relocated to Taipei. The Taiwan headquarters was officially separated from the Chung Hwa Book operations in PRC in 1950-10-08. The Taiwanese company was later registered in 1951 in Taiwan, and renamed to Chung Hwa Book Company, Limited (台灣中華書局股份有限公司) in 1952-09-19.
• Chung Hwa Book Co. (H.K.) Ltd. (中華書局(香港)有限公司): Originally established in 1927 in Queen's Road Central, Hong Kong. In 1988, it was renamed to Chung Hwa Book Co. (H.K.) Ltd. (中華書局(香港)有限公司) and re-registered as a subsidiary of Sino United Publishing (Holdings) Limited (香港聯合出版（集團）有限公司).^[3]
• Chung Hwa Book Company (Singapore) Pte Limited (中華書局(新加坡)有限公司): Originally established in 1913, it was incorporated in 27 October 1989 as a limited private company.^[4]
• Enjoy Time (慢讀時光): A branch of Chung Hwa Book Co. (H.K.) Ltd., located in Hong Kong Central Library.
• Manga Shop (動漫世界): A branch of Chung Hwa Book Co. (H.K.) Ltd. specializing in Japanese comic books and a dealer of the Japanese chain Animate, located in Mong Kok. Established in 2012, the name was changed to Manga Shop when a prior Animate shop had opened in Hong Kong over a decade ago.^[5][6]

Representative publications

• Zizhi Tongjian
• Twenty-Four Histories

References

Notes

1. Wilkinson 2012, p. 866.
2. Wilkinson 2012, p. 629.
3. 出版社 (Chung Hwa Book Co.,(H.K.)LTD)
4. CHUNG HWA BOOK COMPANY (SINGAPORE) PTE LIMITED (198904699R)
5. Animate在港開店！
6. 中華書局反傳統夥連鎖店辦「動漫世界」

Works cited

• Wilkinson, Endymion (2012), Chinese History: A New Manual, Cambridge (MA) and London: Harvard University Asia Center, distributed by Harvard University Press, ISBN 978-0-674-06715-8.

Further reading

• Reed, Christopher Alexander (2003). Gutenberg in Shanghai: Chinese Print Capitalism, 1876–1937. University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-2833-2.

External links

• Zhonghua Book Company (PRC)
• Chung Hwa Book Co. (H.K.) Ltd. (HK)