正祖 御定‧命撰書의 간행과 국가적 역량의 효과적 활용

Abstract

During his reign, King Jeongjo led a massive compilation project, taking care of the entire process of writing, proofreading, and distribution of the published works. Among them, not only central government offices such as Gyujanggak (奎章閣) and Gyoseogwan (校書館), but also local administrative offices including Gamyeong (監營) were responsible for the publication of books and their nationwide distribution. In this paper, I categorized by subject Eojeongseo (御定書) and Myeongchanseo (命撰書), the works compiled by Jeongjo, recorded in Gunseo Pyogi (群書標記) and then investigated into various publication methods used by them. As a result, even within the same subject classification, different publication methods were used depending on the characteristics of the individual books. The wider the use of books and the greater the need for long-term transmission, the more likely they were to choose printing rather than transcribing. The major areas of publication were legislation, justice, ceremonies, literature, literary collection, biographies, and military science. As the demand for book distribution grew, woodblock was preferred than movable type as a means of printing, and when demand for book publication was very high, both moveable type and woodblock were used. As for the readership of Eojeongseo and Myeongchanseo, they can be categorized into four: royal families, government officials, private Confucian scholars, and the common people. The printed version was produced mainly for the royal family, government officials, and the people. Meanwhile, there are many printed copies of books targeted for private Confucian scholars, not limited to bureaucrats, so we can confirm that King Jeongjo's intention of publication was to train people of letters. A number of specialized books were also printed, which were mainly for working-level officials. Books to be widely distributed to local people were often first published in moveable type and then reprinted using woodblock. Since Eojeongseo and Myeongchanseo were compiled by the king, the central government was in charge of writing and editing these works. However, investigation into the place of publication found that the publishing process was done in collaboration between the central and local governments. The division of printing to local government offices was basically aimed at making books widely available to the mass, but it was also intended to preserve woodblocks for a long time in each province. Meanwhile, some technical books were produced and printed by related government offices. This practice was intended to effectively match supply with demand for such works.