由於小說的「通俗適眾」，晚清論者試圖利用小說的特質來助益他們的「趨西追新」的事業。從文學（化）傳播的角度來觀察，「新小說」的提倡者，其實是利用眾多的媒體來實施教化、來鼓動群眾，並形塑他們心目中的「新民」。然而當梁啟超在1915年慨嘆書肆中充溢著誨盜誨淫的小說之時，似乎新小說提倡者所欲形塑的讀者群體，已然消解，一群不同的讀者群取而代之，將小說的發展由高蹈嚴肅的「救國大業」拉回到通俗娛樂的層面來，影響小說的書寫及手法。本文試圖藉由小說閱讀群體的理念，對於晚清時期小說的發展做一梳理。

Because of the popularity and easy accessibility of fiction, fiction was employed by late Qing intellectuals to aid in their pursuit of the new and the modern of the West. What advocates of New Fiction did was to make use of a multitude of media to help educate and mobilize people, and create and shape a readership to achieve their ideals. However, it appears that by 1915, when Liang Qichao 梁啟超 complained that the book markets were overflowing with indecent books, the reading public that Liang and his colleagues were trying to shape had already disappeared, replaced by a new readership. This new readership seemed to have pulled the development of fiction away from the serious enterprise of saving the nation, back down to a more populist and entertaining level, accordingly affecting its style and content. This article attempts to delineate this development in the late Qing period.