A serial of 126 instalments

Yi Kwang-su’s Mujong, this reading begins, is Korea’s first modern long novel. It was serialised in the Maeil Shinbo from January to June 1917, in 126 instalments, and issued as a book in 1918.

At the time of the serial, the love and marriage among three people — Hyeong-sik, Yeong-chae and Seon-hyeong (this reading also writes her name in a shorter form, read as the same Seon-hyeong) — held young readers as a story not seen before. The work is valued, they write, for a modern and enlightening turn of mind, for love treated in some concrete detail, for modern figures, for close psychological description, and for a spoken style, and for opening a new chapter in the history of the Korean novel. Through it Yi Kwang-su could make his name as a writer.

A teacher at Gyeongseong school

The story, as they tell it, begins with Yi Hyeong-sik, a sincere but not very firm teacher at Gyeongseong school, who is to give private lessons to Kim Seon-hyeong, daughter of the Christian elder Kim Jang-ro. The same day, Yeong-chae, the daughter of his old teacher, appears. This reading leaves that opening there.

Jeongju, 1892, and where they stop

Yi Kwang-su, they add, was born in 1892 in Jeongju, North Pyeongan. From the time of his birth the household was already declining, and in the year he turned eleven his father died of cholera.

This reading leaves the book and the life there, before a later recap. The same Korean report, written out more fully, sits on CampusDown.

Sources

1. This reading, a student reading of Yi Kwang-su’s Mujong that stays with a 1917 serial and a teacher at Gyeongseong school.

Last updated: 15 November 2026