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Abstract This paper is a study of the financial aspects of publishing local gazetteersin Ming China .It is based on data collected in my review of over 500 Ming county,department,and prefectural histories . Local histories are more likely than other book genres to contain information on their production costs because their compilation was supervised by bureaucrats who needed to track expenses . To compile and publish a local history,source materials and production supplies had to be bought,salaries for editorial personnel and wages for craftsmen paid,workers fed,gifts for those who assisted in the compilation or wrote prefaces purchased,and incidental expenses such as transportation and storage covered .My study examines how much these various items cost .The information presented in this paper will be useful not only to the study of Chinese local histories,but to book history in general .
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Received: 03 December 2009
Published: 12 November 2010
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