The Xuanjie lu has long been recognized as an early recorded example of a printed text. The date of printing given in its preface suggests that its author, Hegan Ji, was about to be or had just been demoted from the governorship of Canton on the grounds of corruption, from where he was sent to Luoyang. This article argues for the latter place of publication, and suggests that the printing of ‘several thousand’ copies of this short work, while a notable achievement in itself, was perhaps primarily intended to recover the author's political fortunes—a goal in which the evidence suggests that he succeeded, to judge from a recently published inscription by one of his sons.