From the memoir of Bao Tien-xiao, a famous fiction writer and editor of literary journals in republican China, this article tries to reconstruct Bao's early life before 1912 revolution, and to describe how an old-style degree holder under the culture of civil examination changed his economic condition and social status by involving into the novel publishing institutions. Bao's successful career is not only his own personal history, but also a reflection in changing intellectual and social activities of Jiangnan literati during this period. By being a translator, writer, editor and publisher, some literati in late Qing, with their cultural resources, had another choice to improve their life, and their social basis had been transformed under this process.