Lian Huan Hua

　　Lian huan hua, a traditional characteristic style of Chinese book, can completely compare against Peking Opera and be recognized as the quintessence art of China in terms of the cultural symbol. As a wonderful flower of Shanghai-School Culture, Lian huan hua adopts Chinese traditional painting techniques, studies western illustrated books’ expression skills and integrates with word descriptions to form pocket-sized serial picture books. When the classic stories illustrated by excellent pictures, easy to understand and carry as well, Lian huan hua became the book can be read with appreciation by both young and old for all tastes.
　　Lian huan hua was born out of fictions and illustrations of the traditional opera librettos from the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties. Annotations on Romance of the West Chamber Opera Libretto, a book of 161 pages and about 137 illustrations, was published in the reign of Ming Emperor Xiaozong (1488-1505). The format was designed with pictures on the top and texts below, and titles were used for guide of reading. It is the texts tightly combined with the serial pictures that made the original basis for Lian huan hua.
　　In the 10th year of the reign of the Qing Emperor Guangxu, Lantern Gathering and other serial picture stories had been published in Tien-Shih-Chai Pictorial under Shen Bao in Shanghai. They marked the birth of modern Lian huan hua.
　　Since the opening of Shanghai Port, Shanghai has soon become the junction of eastern and western culture. With rapid growth of printing industry, the advanced printing technology contributed to the Lian huan hua publishing. Shanghai Wenyi Publishing House published The History of the Three Kingdoms in the early period of 20th century, which were printed by photolithography technology and bound into booklets. Then, Lian huan hua, commonly known as Xiao Ren Shu to Chinese (pocket-sized serial picture books), became much more popular.
　　After the Liberation of China, with Lian huan hua’s efficient effect in publicity getting much more attention, Chinese Government strengthened the guide in Lian huan hua’s creating and publishing, and established People’s Fine Arts Publishing House of East China which renamed to Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Publishing House (SPFAPH) later in 1955. During the public-private joint management (1956), all the private Lian huan hua publishing houses in Shanghai were merged into SPFAPH. Therefore SPFAPH had a whole constellation of Lian huan hua artists more than one hundred at the height of its development, and they were humorously portrayed as “108 stars of Destiny” (characters in Outlaws of the Marsh). When Lian huan hua step into its prosperity period, with a large number of masterpieces created, such as the Romance of Three Kingdoms, Great Changes in a Mountain Village and Reconnaissance across the Yangtze, a group of Lian huan hua artists emerged, such as Cheng Shifa, He Youzhi, Gu Bingxin, Dai Dunbang and Wang Guanqing. Statistics show that so far SPFAPH has published about 8000 Lian huan hua stories, and also due to the public-private joint management, SPFAPH had collected more than ten thousand Lian huan hua stories published by private publishing houses during the Republic of China. It is the Lian huan hua published by SPFAPH that played an irreplaceable effect in publicizing principles and policies of the Party, encouraging the spirit of the people and carrying forward China’s fine civilization during the socialist revolution and construction period.
　　Owing to the ten chaotic years (1966-1976), Lian huan hua suffered attacks and destroys like other Arts in cultural sphere and reached its low ebb. In the late of 1980s, Lian huan hua disappeared from the counters of bookstores for some reason. As the leading publisher, SPFAPH has recognized the historical role and artistic value of Lian huan hua from a strategic view since 2000. And a new series of publishing policies have been set up, such as further efforts should be made to exploit the special Lian huan hua resources, to integrate publishing contents, to increase artistic and cultural contents, to refine the edition design and to raise the printing quality. These years, SPFAPH has released Lian huan hua stories of hardback edition, rice paper edition, special edition and the original classic blue-cover edition. All these are warmly welcomed and enjoyed wide popular support, and become the featured publication of SPFAPH. Since 2000 till now, the number of republished Lian huan hua stories has amounted to more than 1000, with an impression of millions of volumes.