ABSTRACT
V E R thirty extant books bear the imprint o f H uanduzhai M U V _ > /I f , a publishing house operating first in H angzhou and then in Suzhou between the 1620s and the 1690s.1 T hese books, along with traces o f publications no longer extant, can be used to con struct a picture o f this enterprise in its two, nearly discrete stages.2 D uring the first stage, H uanduzhai was in H angzhou. It was dom i nated by W ang Q i 3EM, a H angzhou native, who was born around 1600 and retired in 1668, the last tim e anything definite can be said about him . W ang Q i wrote poetry and fiction, as well as m edical books, but it is in the capacity o f editor that he contributed m ost to H uanduzhai. H e edited a major edition o f Journey to the West entitled
Journey to the West that Proves the Way (X iyou zhengdao shu H )3 and an im portant “ route b ook ,” Essentials fo r the Gentleman-
78 ELLEN W ID M ER Merchant at a Glance (Shishang yaolan ± ® H K ) .4 W ith X u Shijun ^
H uang Zhouxing and others, he edited a set o f three let ter collections, entitled Modern Letters (C hidu xinyu XJ9t$Tl§; 1663, 1667, and 1668), and he published m edical and other practical books in a wide range o f fields.
