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Kurofune Kawaraban. Perry and the Black Ships in Japan. 改正泰平鑑 [Kaisei Taiheikan]. n.p. [1854]. Woodcut 40x61cm on two joined sheets. sold
After Perry's MacArthur-Terminator like threat to return after his first visit in 1853 the defence of Japan became paramount and defence or peace (taihei) prints blossomed. Up to date news of the clans massed around Tokyo Bay must have been issued every morning and when Perry did indeed return his ships - in all sorts of imaginary forms - were added to the maps. This is called a 'revised' map and my guess is that those amorphous boats parked where Perry anchored were a rushed block cutter's best effort to get the news out before anyone had time to dust off an old Dutch ship print and mount wheels and a funnel.
Kurofune Kawaraban. Perry and the Black Ships in Japan. 泰平安民画図 [Taihei Anmin Gazu]. n.p. [1854]. Two joined woodcuts 56x39. Ragged and some small holes near the centre but not bad. sold
The top half is a detail of defences and the bottom half a pleasingly incongruous view of the ships: from the rear they are old Dutch ships and from the side they are rather good renderings (or rendering - it's one ship repeated) of the American paddle steamers.
Kawaraban. 北亜墨利加内合衆國 [Kita Amerika-nai Gasshu Kuni?]. n.p. [mid 19th century?]. woodcut 31x24cm. Rather good. sold
An American and a Russian, I believe. There were a number of these sort of guides to the pesky foreigners who were beginning to swarm around Japan like jackals around a small but plump antelope. How useful they were as spotter's guides ...
Kawarabans were illicit illustrated news sheets for the streets and produced by the million for a couple of hundred years so of course few survive. They were produced for anything more interesting than the drop of a hat.
Kawaraban. 欧羅巴人図 [Yoroppa Jin Zu]. n.p. [mid 19th century?]. Woodcut 31x24cm. Rather good. Au$600
Europeans.
Kawaraban. 亜墨利加婦人 : 唐大清南京人 [Amerika Fujin : To-Dai Nankinjin]. n.p. [185-?] Woodcut 31x24cm. Rather good. sold
This friendly, if tangled, double portrait tells us that this is an American woman and a Chinese man and includes some phonetic translations from English words. But that is no American woman and the alphabet is Russian.
Kurofune Kawaraban. Perry and the Black Ships. アメリカ蒸気船之図 ... 海陸御固御役人附 [Amerika Jokisen no Zu ... Kairiku o Kata o Yakunin Fu]. n.p. [1854]. Woodcut 60x32cm on two sheets; folded. Au$1500
A most handsome portrait of Perry's steamship by an artist in no way hampered by being at some remove from the subject.
Kawaraban - illicit illustrated news sheets for the streets - were produced by the million for a couple of hundred years so of course few survive. They were produced for anything more interesting than the drop of a hat and the arrival of the Black Ships, the American squadron commanded by Perry, in 1853 and 54 eclipsed any and all tiresome earthquakes, fires, plagues, famines, murders and scandals. For most Japanese this was the same as a squadron of alien space ships arriving on earth now. These prints are the kurofune (black ship) kawaraban. There is an almost identical version of this but in that there is just one background ship, partly obscured by a flag.
Attached is the list of officials manning the defences.
Shimizuya Tsunejiro (publisher). 和洋四體以呂波 [Wayo Shitai Iroha]. Tokyo? Shimizuya Tsunejiro mid 19th century. Woodcut in three colours 37x25cm. An excellent copy. Au$500
This elegant table teaches how to write hiragana phonetically with the English or romanised alphabet - what was to become romaji. The Portugese missionaries had formulated a romanised system so that missionaries could instruct their Japanese victims without having to learn how to read Japanese but once they were tossed out of Japan such a system was quickly forgotten. It was only with the opening of Japan followed by the Meiji restoration and orders from the top that modernisation must follow that making Japanese intelligible to westerners became a desirable skill.
In the bottom left corner are numbers.
西洋草字いろは [Seiyo Sojo Iroha]. n.p. n.d. [c1860-70?]. Woodcut 25x34cm. Folded, rather good. Au$165
A kawaraban style - ie anonymous, cheap and disposable - guide to western cursive writing. Iroha can be translated as ABC - from the maybe C11th poem which is used to order kana. Illicit news sheets - kawaraban - which look much like this were a staple of street life in Japan and come the foreigners the kawaraban producers went crazy. Come the Meiji restoration and modernisation books which taught the English alphabet and odd selections of vocabulary proliferated but sheets like this were education for the commonest folk.
Fukuzawa Yukichi [as by Katayama Junnosuke]. 西洋衣食住 [Seiyo Ishokuju]. n.p. 1867 (Keio 3). 15x11cm publisher's wrapper with title label; 40pp, woodcut illustrations throughout. A pleasingly used copy with carefully penned English alphabets on the front and inside both covers; the second annotated and the third quite elaborate capitals. Au$475
A winsome little educative work that could be social anthropology, a study in material culture or a shopping list. Published on the eve of the Meiji and reform, this describes the appearance, purpose and use of western clothing - top to toe - utensils, furnishings and accessories like brushes, umbrellas and watches.
This came after Fukazawa's near monumental 'Seiyo Jijo' and 'Seiyo Tabi Annai' - descriptions of the west from the missions to America and Europe - but wasn't published under his own name until the 1891 collected works. So we now have historians speaking of Fukazawa's 1867 book while librarians and sometimes booksellers catalogued it under Katayama - who seems to have been something of a literary hack who wrote the preface and apparently prepared the book for Fukuzawa. I read somewhere and can't find it again that the editor of the recent collected works found a difference between this original and the 1891 text and restored this.
There is a lot of useful information for Japanese travellers here: don't slurp the soup, and remember the chamber pot (helpfully illustrated in place under a bed) has only one purpose.
Catalogue - optical and scientific instruments. Osumi Gensuke 大隈源助 - 御眼鏡類 ... 磁石時計類 ... 唐物類 ... [Osumi Gensuke - O megane-rui ... Jishaku tokei-rui ... Karamono-rui ...]. Tokyo, Osumi [c1870?]. 24x35cm woodcut broadside. Old folds, a nice copy. sold
Hikifuda - an advertising handbill or small poster - for the firm of Osumi Gensue who was a glass maker, inventor of an oil lamp, and a maker and importer of scientific, optical and surveying instruments in the late Edo early Meiji period. Osumi produced a number of these hikifuda from about 1850 to 1870 and, while some advanced merchants changed their address from Edo to Tokyo before the official move in 1868 I can't confidently claim that Osumi was one of them, so I'll date this to soon after.
横文字いろは - 早けい古 [Yokomoji Iroha - Haya Keiko]. Yokohama? Sanoya Tomigoro [c1870?]. Woodcut on four joined sheets that folds from 15x7cm out to 130cm. Decorated title panel printed in blue and black, last blank panel with several small red stamps reading Naga (長) and one Nagata (長田). An outstanding copy of something pretty well guaranteed not to survive second or third uses. Au$600
A captivating pocket or sleeve guide to horizontal writing with some numbers thrown in - Roman numerals for reading clocks - the latest of what must have seemed an endless array of challenges to life in Meiji Japan. Iroha might be translated into English as ABC.
Sanoya Tomigiri was a print publisher who moved from Tokyo (Edo) to Yokohama when it opened to the west and where he also became a singer. He is known as the publisher of prints by Yoshitoshi and at least four of the Utagawas, maps, guides and handy educational things like this.
I found a reference to something with almost this title printed by him at the beginning of the Meiji but it isn't the same thing, not even close. There may be another copy of this somewhere but I haven't found it.
Kawaraban. 流通新貨幣位付早見 [Ryutsu Shin Kahei-i-tsuki Hayami]. n.p.n.d. [c1870]. 32x41cm wood cut. A couple of small blotches, rather good. Au$165
A quick guide to the new coins in circulation. Added to the mass of new things for Japanese to learn and new ways of thinking, with the Meiji restoration, was the new yen based currency.
Kawaraban - illicit illustrated news sheets for the streets - were produced by the million for a couple of hundred years so of course few survive. They were produced for anything more interesting than the drop of a hat.
Hashizume Kan'ichi. 六大洲國盡 [Rokudaishu Kuni Zukushi] Name of the Land on the Globe. VI. Daishiu Kuni Dzkushi [sic]. Tokyo, Wan'ya Kehei 1871 (Meiji 4). 18x13cm publisher's wrapper with title label (covers mottled); [32]pp, doubled page colour world map in two hemispheres and two folding colour maps (Asia and Europe). A touch of worming, pretty insignificant; quite a good copy. Au$350
Just when I thought I must have seen all of Hashizume's handy little guides to English, up pops another. This guide to place names in the three forms: upper, lower case and long hand, is titled as complete but, as this covers Asia and Europe, now I have to look for a companion volume for the rest of the world.
Hashizume, the translator, produced quantities of handy guides to English and useful translations, most of which are idiosyncratic in their choices of what is considered essential to any Japanese setting out to work in English.
Worldcat finds only the NDL entry.
Mill, John Stuart and Nakamura Masanao. 自由之理 [Jiyu no Ri or Jiyuno Kotowari depending on the transcriber]. On Liberty. Shizuoka, Kihira Ken'ichiro [1872]. Five volumes in six books 23x16cm, publisher's yellow wrappers with title labels. Preface in English signed EWC, this was Edward Warren Clark who taught science in Shizuoka and, later, Tokyo. Covers a bit marked, an excellent set with the original printed outer wrapper (fukuro). Au$2500
The first Japanese edition of Mill's On Liberty - a book that Douglas Howland (in Personal Liberty and Public Good) tells us was "reportedly read by the entire generation of educated Japanese who came of age during the restoration".
I hoped to be able to nail down any issue points and clear up any confusion between the two forms this book takes: the five volumes bound as six books, as here, with volume two divided into two; or bound as five books. The confusion is heightened because many libraries and cataloguers use the 1871 date on the title, ignoring the preface dated January 1872.
I thought that a sort of colophon for Dojinsha - Nakamura's school - pasted inside the last back cover might help, but that leaf appears in both versions. Only the cover labels seem to be different. I've found nothing in any language that examines the printing history and while the rule of thumb - everywhere in the world - is that the more costly version - in materials and time - usually came first, I've had to conclude that there isn't any discernible priority and the difference may well be where, rather than when, the books were bound.
Nakamura's translation of Smile's 'Self Help' was also published by Kihira in Shizuoka and it seems that Kihira Ken'ichiro existed as a publisher only for Nakamura's translations of these two books which he made in Shizuoka - home of the deposed Tokugawa shogun - where he taught after his return from England in 1868 until 1872. In other words, Nakamura was really the publisher of both books.
Worldcat finds five, maybe six, locations outside of Japan - one in Britain, the rest in the US - all but one are catalogued as 1871.
Mill, John Stuart and Nakamura Masanao. 自由之理 [Jiyu no Ri or Jiyuno Kotowari depending on the transcriber]. On Liberty. Shizuoka, Kihira Ken'ichiro [1872]. Five volumes in six books 23x16cm, publisher's yellow wrappers with title labels. Preface in English signed EWC, this was Edward Warren Clark who taught science in Shizuoka and, later, Tokyo. A square red stamp in the top corner of the first page of each volume with faint signs of characters, no other signs of ownership. A rather good set. Au$1500
Reread the note above.
Yanagawa Shunsan. 西洋時計便覧 [Seiyo Tokei Benran]. Tokyo, Yamatoya Kihee 1872 [Meiji 5]. 185x80mm publisher's stiff wrapper with title label (marked), accordian folding to form 34pp with woodblock illustrations throughout. Rather good. Au$500
An introduction to the western watch and its workings and - more important - western time and how to tell it. Roman numerals and the hour, minute and seconds hands are explained and a series of watch faces guide us through the rest of the intricacies of measuring time in the western style. Obviously for the sleeve or pocket, this could be hauled out with the new gizmo when its fledgling owner was stumped. Or even by a non-watch owner faced with a public clock. At the end the thermometer is illustrated and explained too.
This is not to say that the Japanese hadn't already mastered the clock. Since the Jesuits introduced clocks in the 16th century Japanese clockmakers had developed complex weight and spring driven mechanisms to run timekeepers according to the unequal hours of day and night, varying according to season. But in 1872 the government switched from the lunar calendar to the solar calendar and abolished traditional timekeeping and a whole nation had to start again from scratch.
Makes sense to me that daylight hours are longer and night hours shorter in summer and the reverse in winter. We all know that despite what the clock says all hours are not created equal. Bring back traditional Japanese timekeeping I say.
Iehara Masanori & Shiozu Kanichiro. 学校必用 - 色図問答 [Gakko Hitsuyo - Irozu Mondo]. Kyoto, Shiga Shinbun 1876 (Meiji 9). 21x15cm publisher's wrapper with title label; [2],40,[2]pp on 22 double folded leaves, two colour charts and small colour squares through the text, hand coloured. Owner's inscription on the back wrapper; used but pretty good for an old school book. sold
Western colour theory introduced to Japanese students. This was, according to one historian and repeated by others, first published in 1873 but I can't find any copy earlier than 1876. I have read that it is a copy of an American book by Marcius Willson but I think there is some confusion. Willson produced wall charts for American schools that were used in Japan and I suspect that in 1873 wall chart no. XIV was introduced. His accompanying writings on color in his 'Manual of Information and Suggestions for Object Lessons' - the work cited - are nothing like this. In any case he seems to have borrowed Field's chromatics. So it was English colour theory that made its way into Japan first.
Sato Unsho. 小学色図問答 [Shogaku Irozu Mondo]. Nagoya, Keiundo 1878 (Meiji 11). 18x13cm publisher's wrapper (blotched); with block or stencil coloured colour wheel and colour chart. A pretty good copy, remarkably good for an old school book. Au$350
Second printing maybe, a month after the first? This is very similar but not quite the same as the 'Irozu Mondo' prefixed as 'Gakko Hitsoyu' (school essentials) rather than 'Shogaku' (primary school) and if that's not confusing enough, this title apparently exists as three different books by different authors.
Western colour theory for Japanese students. The colour chart and wheel are the same as the 'Gakko Hitsoya ...' above, which I guess means that the theory traces back to Field's chromatics.
Inaba Eiko. 徴兵免役心得 [Chohei Men'eki Kokoroe]. Osaki Naosaburo 1879 (Meiji 12). 17x11cm later wrapper with manuscript title; illustrated title/self wrapper and eight leaves. An excellent copy. Au$500
The draft dodger's handbook: a guide to exemptions from conscription into the new Imperial Army. Conscription rolled out slowly across Japan from 1873 and one of the most useful exemptions was being a first son; which meant a rash of adoptions preferably into a family where conscription hadn't yet arrived. Fukuzawa wrote about "sons who do not know where their fathers live" and I read somewhere that one of Japan's great literary heroes - Soseki maybe? - registered himself in Hokkaido to escape the draft.
Of course money solved everything: an exemption or proxy fee meant that someone else took your place and I would guess that no true aristocrat would dream of having a son drafted; they were already in military school and officer training. So, naturally, peasants filled the draftee ranks and not all peasants were happy about this. There were 'blood tax' riots, the most furious in Okayama where authorities adroitly charged 20,000 rioters, executed a dozen or so and gaoled a few dozen more.
Without money, a good solid disease, disability or an affable sonless family this little pamphlet was your best friend. Worldcat finds no copies and CiNii finds one, at Tokyo University. It's often cited by academics but as they mostly repeat each other's mistakes I doubt many have seen it.
新撰唱歌のふきよせ [Shinsen Shoka no Fukiyose]. n.p. n.d. [c1880?] 18x12cm publisher's colour woodcut wrapper; 10 double leaves (20pp); b/w woodcut illustrations throughout. Rather good. Au$125
A rare and charming songbook, apparently for children, which has a look of long tradition. But if these are proper shoka then it is a form of school song that began with Meiji reformation of education. The subjects are in any case thoroughly up to date: balloons, steamships and photographs.
None of these songbooks are going to be common. I found an entry for what might be the same book in the Ryukyu University catalogue; nothing else.
End of the world. 世界転覆奇談 [Sekai Tenpuku Kidan]. Fukutaro, October 2nd 1881 (Meiji 14) Colour woodcut on two sheets 36x49cm. Some splodges, professional repairs to wormholes, not bad. Au$1200
Mother Shipton in Japan and the end of world over 15 days. Word somehow spread, at the time of a series of natural disasters, that some 15th century westerner had prophesised the end of the world in 1881 and it looked very much like it was happening. I can't find any indication that Mother Shipton has been identified in Japan but she must be our culprit. Or rather, since Mother Shipton's prophecies only began appearing a century or so after her death, supposing that she did exist, in this case the blame lies with Charles Hindley, hack antiquarian and bibliographer, who published an authentic version of her prophecies in 1862 which included the 1881 prophecy and, in 1873, confessed that he made it up.
A chilling sort of butterfly effect, in that an amusing jape in Brighton, England ends up apparently causing despair and suicides in Japan twenty years later. What is curious is that these prints and pamphlets are labelled a 'delusion' of the end of the world but this did not stop despair and it certainly didn't affect the sales of all these prints. Fujimoto* quotes from a 1925 interview with someone who remembered the fuss and spoke of crowds in the print shops every day and the rising number of suicides. I gather the authorities lost patience and cracked down pretty quick. Naturally all those books and prints have pretty much vanished.
*This print is no.8 in a deduced list of 19 items put together by Naoki Fujimoto for an article on the delusion in a 2010 NDL newsletter. Quite a few of those were listed as unseen. He locates a copy of this print at Tokyo University and Tokyo Museum has a copy. That's all I could find. Waseda has a similar print but in a different format published by Hirano Denkichi a few days earlier.
I gather the balloon is carrying a couple of English balloonists fleeing the country but I'm not clear which country.
End of the world. 世界不転覆諭 [Sekai fu Tenpuku Satoshi]. Tokyo Hasegawa Tokusaburo, October 1881 (Meiji 14). Colour woodcut 50x36cm. Old folds and signs of use; pretty good. Au$1250
This intriguing, to me puzzling, large print is no.19 in a deduced list of 19 items put together by Naoki Fujimoto for an article on the delusion in a 2010 NDL newsletter. Quite a few of those were listed as unseen. This is one of them.
