ABSTRACT
CIRCULATING LIBRARIES AND THEIR TEXTS The gradual diversification of the Choson readership would become an unmistakable trend by the eighteenth century, and the appearance of popular readers, especially women, may have played an important role in establishing the viability of circulating libraries or commercial lending libraries (sech’aekchdm, ItffiHJi)- The evidence for the existence of circula ting libraries during the eighteenth century comes from two documents that are extremely critical of women readers. In a memorial about his deceased young wife, Ch’ae Che-gong (1720-99) observes:
growth cycle of similar lending institutions elsewhere. In China, Otani notes that circulating libraries receive infrequent mention in most existing studies, but there is evidence that in the early Qing dynasty (1616-1911) traveling libraries on boats may have lent out books and that circulating libraries had become established in Beijing by the late Qing period.24 In Europe and Japan, circulating libraries had appeared by the eighteenth century and flourished in the early nineteenth century until they ended their operations in the early twentieth century.2'' They also encouraged the production of multi-volume formats, such as the three-decker novel in England, that were priced too high for most individuals to purchase, and allowed circulating libraries to collect multiple lending fees from a single title. In the Japanese case, readers read extremely long vernacular novels through circulating libraries or kashihonya (1$ ^ h \ ) that bought up most of the publishers' stock.26 Circulating libraries in other locales largely met their demise because public libraries were established and books became cheaper to produce.27
