After the late Ming Dynasty,unlike the illustrations being merely accessories of writings in the past,pure″picture books″t hat mainly consisted of pictures began to be published widely . We can see such examples in the various fields,like Lidai Guren Xiangzan,Ming Zhuangyuan Tukao,Jinling Tuyong,Tangshi Huapu,etc . In China,books with illustrations had been regarded as vulgar and most of the books consisted merely of words .Therefore,thefact that illustrations began to be added to books and there even appeared books containing mainly pictures later on suggests a big change in the history of Chinese books . This change can certainly be regarded as thepopularization of the″refined″books that formerly belonged to theliteraticlass . Books with illustrations published in earlier times,such as Quanxiang Pinghua in the Yuan Dynasty,were intended for the common people . However,if we examine the picture books published in the late Ming Dynasty,we can find″refined″works of very high level with the development of the engraving techniques at that time . These works were all intended to cater for a high-level reader market .Nonetheless,observed fromanother angle,readers of Tangshi Huapu and Shiyu Huapucanalsobe said to belower-level readers,or middle-level readers,incomparison with readers who were able to appreciate poetry without help of illustrations . Therefore,concerning the book market in the late Ming Dynasty,it is necessary to take into consideration both layers of popularization (vulgarization) and gentrification (refinement) .″Picture books″h ad a very close connection with such newly emerged readers in the late Ming Dynasty .