Established in 1872, Shen Bao (申報, historically transliterated as Shun Pao or Shen-pao) was the most influential and longest lasting commercial newspaper before the establishment of the People’s Republic. Published in Shanghai until 1949, Shen Bao was founded by Englishman Ernest Major, but, uniquely, as a newspaper for Chinese readers, written by Chinese reporters. During its existence, Shen Bao gradually shifted from a conservative to a more liberal perspective, and played a pivotal role in the formation of public opinion in the imperial period and into the tumultuous beginnings of modern China. Shen Bao’s innovations in printing technologies, specialized use of the telegraph, and dispatch of special military correspondents gave it an edge.
The Shen Bao Digital Archive contains all obtainable published issues (1872-1949, over 2 million articles).
The Shen Bao Digital Archive offers scholars the most comprehensive collection available for this title, and features full page-level digitization, complete original graphics, and 100% searchable text.
China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) E-Books Service
The Library is excited to announce its subscription to the CNKI E-Books service, offering full-text access and the option to download entire books. With over 9,000 high-quality academic titles from China’s most authoritative scholarly publishers, this service covers a wide range of subject areas, including Art, Language & Literature, History, Nationality & Geography, and Philosophy & Religion. It provides invaluable resources for both research and learning.
The CNKI E-Books collection covers a variety of specialized topics, such as:
This invaluable resource enhances access to authoritative Chinese scholarly content, significantly enriching China-related studies. It is also essential for students working on dissertations and theses that require Chinese-language sources.
Database of Chinese Popular Literature (中國俗文庫)
The Library offers full-text online access to the Database of Chinese Popular Literature (中國俗文庫). It contains over 10,000 vernacular literary works and historical documents from the Han and Wei dynasties onward. It includes novels, dramas, folk songs, proverbs, and more, providing rich insights into everyday life, beliefs, and culture. As a key complement to classical Chinese literature, it is an essential resource for studying the social, religious, literary, and art history of China.
The database is a valuable resource for both research and teaching in early modern Chinese fiction and drama. It supports research by offering a comprehensive corpus with keyword search and parallel reading functions, enabling a broader research scope and the inclusion of additional materials. For teaching, it serves as a primary resource for research exercises, helps students engage with primary texts, and supports dissertation work on Chinese popular literature. Additionally, it enhances course units on mass media and translation studies by highlighting the literary features of pre-Europeanized Chinese texts. The database also promotes self-paced student learning and contributes to research on Chinese religious texts, Confucianism, and Buddhism.
Overall, it is an essential repository of Chinese popular literature and cultural history.
China : Culture and Society : the Wason Pamphlet Collection, Cornell University
China: Culture and Society contains the pamphlets held in the Charles W. Wason Collection on East Asia. Mostly in English and published between c.1750 and 1929, they amount to around 1,200 pamphlets in 220 bound volumes.
The Wason Pamphlet Collection has been digitised in its entirety in full colour and the documents are full-text searchable. Many are illustrated and feature lavish cover art. Types of content within the pamphlets include:
The scope of the Wason Pamphlet Collection is astonishingly broad. Together, the pamphlets provide an insight into a wide variety of topics concerning Chinese culture, history, religion, everyday life and foreign involvement in the country. It should be noted, however, that the pamphlets were largely written by Western academics, diplomats, merchants, missionaries and travellers who encountered China over several centuries. They depict a Western perception of China, representing the initial means by which foreigners would have learnt about China in the period. As a result, some of the pamphlets do include offensive language, othering stereotypes and terminology which we would not deem acceptable today (Provided by Publisher).
China: Trade, Politics and Culture
The China : Trade, Politics & Culture database is based on collections of manuscript materials held at the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and the British Library in London, supplemented by additional sources from Cambridge University Library, the Church Missionary Society Archive, the Council for World Missions Library, Duke University, the National Archives at Kew, the Alexander Turnbull Library at the National Library of New Zealand and Yale Divinity Library. In addition it includes a range of printed materials including missionary periodicals, atlases and books which help to contextualize the other sources. The source material details China's interaction with the West from Macartney's first Embassy to China in 1793, through to the Nixon/Heath visits to China in 1972-74. It provides multiple perspectives from politicians, diplomats, missionaries, business people and tourists, and documents many of the key events that happened in this period. With documents encompassing events from the earliest English embassy to the birth and early years of the People’s Republic, this resource collects sources from nine archives to give an incredible insight into the changes in China during this period.
Translations of the Peking Gazette Online
Translations of the Peking Gazette Online is a comprehensive database of approximately 8,500 pages of English-language renderings of official edicts and memorials from the Qing dynasty that cover China's long nineteenth century from the Macartney Mission in 1793 to the abdication of the last emperor in 1912. As the mouthpiece of the government, the Peking Gazette is the authoritative source for information about the Manchu state and its Han subjects as they collectively grappled with imperial decline, re-engaged with the wider world, and began mapping the path to China's contemporary rise. The Peking Gazette was a unique publication that allows contemporary readers to explore the contours, boundaries, and geographies of modern Chinese history. Contained within its pages are the voices of Manchu emperors, Han officials, gentry leaders, and peasant spokesmen as they discussed and debated the most important political, social, and cultural movements, trends, and events of their day. As such, the Gazette helps us understand the policies and attitudes of the emperors, the ideas and perspectives of the officials, and the mentality and worldviews of several hundred million Han, Mongol, Manchu, Muslim, and Tibetan subjects of the Great Qing Empire.
The following are important databases for this subject area, however if you don't see what you're looking for, please go to the Database Directory for Chinese Studies to browse a wider selection.
Follow the links below to browse databases for specific types of resources.
You can use our Database Directory to browse a broader range of databases that are relevant to Chinese Studies as well as other subjects. The directory also allows you to identify databases that provide access to specific types of resources (e.g. Full Text Articles, Streaming Video, Patents, Theses and Dissertations, and much more).
The University of Manchester's research is internationally recognised. Go to Research Explorer, Manchester's research database, to discover the breadth of research produced by staff across the University.
Browse research publications from the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures - Chinese Studies (please note: whilst many of the publications listed are available to access/Open Access, some records are for forthcoming titles awaiting publication).
