Printed by the Taiwan Commercial Press in 1959, this book was a reference books for secondary school teachers teaching Chinese. The book includes different styles of essays (prose, poetry, descriptive and argumentative essays etc), and comes with a teaching guide on how to explain and what prompting questions to ask students. The author of this book is Zhu Zi Qing (朱自清) (1898-1948), whose short essays in vernacular Chinese occupy a prominent role in modern Chinese literature. Set up in 1947, Taiwan Commercial Press was originally a branch of The Commercial Press based in Shanghai. Founded in 1897, The Commercial Press was the oldest modern publishing house in China. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the Kuomintang government demanded that the Taiwan branch of The Commercial Press be an independent entity.The Commercial Press also opened a branch in Singapore in 1915 and was the first local Chinese bookstore. Together with Chung Hwa Book Company, they produced most of the local Chinese textbooks in Singapore before World War II.
