"To write for children, and to write well": protestant mission presses and the development of children’s literature in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century China

This article uses a new historicist approach to examine the complex
relationships between translators, writers, and missionary publishers
in China, and their financial supporters in the United States and Britain
to demonstrate how they influenced the development of Chinese children’s
literature. It focuses on the case of the American Presbyterian Mission
Press, Chinese Religious Tract Society, and Christian Literature Society
for China, publishers of many texts for children. The article argues that
the Western mission presses shaped Chinese children’s literature in the
late nineteenth and early twentieth century by introducing new narratives
through translation, highlighting the importance of including visual images
in children’s texts by importing electrotypes and lithographic prints
from the United States and Britain, and training Chinese students in new
engraving and printing techniques which enabled them to establish their
own publishing houses.