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正則 英語獨案内 Strait Gate to the Kingdom of Westen Knowledge. [Seisoku Eigo Hitoriannai]. Osaka, Aoki Suzando 1886 (Meiji 19). 19x13cm publisher's printed boards and cloth spine; with an illustrated section on the mouth and sounds of speech. Outer pages browned, some blotches and marks but pretty good for such a vulnerable book. Au$125

Third edition, revised and expanded according to the overprinting at the top of the cover and title page; it first appeared the year before. Standard English based on Webster; so of course, to the properly educated, this is not standard English but American.
This is a 'ball cover' (boru hyoshi) book - a signal of modernity and the Japanese equivalent of a yellowback: flimsy western style bindings with lithograph covers that rarely survive in decent shape. Note that it opens right to left.


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Gomeiro Tamasuke & Ito Senzo 開明奇談写真廼仇討 [Kaimeikidan Shashinnoadauchi]. Tokyo?, Hiyoshido 1887 (Meiji 20) 19x12cm publisher's cloth backed colour illustrated boards; 100pp, one double page, four full page illustrations. Smudges and minor signs of use, rather good. Au$350

A murder mystery revenge tale in which a photograph both identifies the killer and can curse that killer. Stabbing portraits has a long history in the west but usually in fury, for wish fullfilment and, in a few cases, as practice for the real thing. Witchcraft didn't come into it. As far as I'm aware using a portrait to curse someone was not much of a thing in Japan, there were plenty of other ways. And photographs? Is there any earlier use of photos to curse someone?
This is a reprint; it first appeared, I think, in 1884 in two parts. It is a sokkibon, a stenographic book, from a story told by Gomeiro transcribed by Ito. And it's a 'ball cover' (boru hyoshi) book - a symbol of modernity and the Japanese equivalent of a yellowback: flimsy western style bindings with lithograph covers that rarely survive in decent shape. Worldcat finds no copies of any edition outside Japan.


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Hanai Oume. Shuyotei Sofu. 花井於梅 粹月奇聞 [or 花井お梅 酔月奇聞] [Hanai Oume Suigetsu Kibun]. Tokyo, Ishikawa Denkichi December 1887 (Meiji 20). Two volumes stitched together 18x12cm, colour wood covers by Utagawa Kunimatsu (the first a bit used with a small hole); two double page, two single illustrations at the front, four large illustrations through the text. Browning of the preliminary pages of volume one, a stain in the gutter at the bottom, still rather good. Au$350

One of the prizes of the dokufu craze of the early Meiji. dokufu - poisonous women - are nothing new of course but the happy conjunction at the advent of mass circulation newspapers of a beautifully timed series of murders by unvirtuous young women set the sensation mongers and their readers all of a fever. Newspaper to book, lurid print to kabuki and back again, dokufu were all the rage for a couple of decades. Along the way crime fiction was born and, in a way, modern Japanese literature.
Hanai Oume earned her place as one on the trinity of great dokufu for the murder of her employee for helping her sponging father muscle her out of her business - the teahouse Suigetsu. The famous umbrella was part of her defence.
Of course nothing about cheap popular trash like this is going to be straightforward. The colophon here tells us this is a reprint but lists the first as November 1887 which must be a newspaper appearance. Keio university's copy which uses the same covers is a different printing from a different publisher (Mizuno Ikutaro) with a colophon listing nothing before December while Yamanashi University's copy, published by Yamazaki Matasaburo and dated the same day as Keio's, is yet another different printing with a different cover. None of this is helped by the book being titled by both variants in the same copy.


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Makino Yasuzo. 英和商業会話編 [Eiwa Shogyo Kaiwahen] Awashogeo Kai Wa Hen [cover title]. Kyoto, Makino Yasuzo 1887 (Meiji 20). 13x9cm publisher's cloth backed decorated boards (some surface nibbling); [4],60pp on double folded leaves. Signs of use but rather good for such a flimsy binding and vulnerable book. Au$150

Here's another of these nifty little bi-lingual conversation books; this one designed to baffle business people. I don't know how the Japanese version reads but it's a foolhardy customer who says to me, "Please charge these to my credit; I will pay you when it is convenient." I've had many customers who think that but they don't say it out loud. Not any more.
Worldcat finds no copies outside Japan.


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Yamanaka Eijiro. 萬國周遊雙六 [Mankoku Shuyu Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Yamanaka Eijiro 1887 (Meiji 20). Colour woodcut map 50x71cm, folding into modern patterned paper cover with paper label. Some worming expertly repaired; all, including the covers, a triumph of sympathetic craft. A handsome copy. Au$1200

This rare world tour game tells us all the important stuff we need to know about the world. Thanks to the modern wonder of other people putting in the effort I can tell you that in 1888 this was advertised in newspapers and the womens' magazine Iratsume as an educational game for family and schools for two sen.
Worldcat finds no copies; CiNii finds two locations.


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Gyokaen Karyu & Saikaen Ryuko. 同胞の決闘 [Doho no Ketto]. Tokyo, Jiyukaku 1889 (Meiji 22). 18x12cm publisher's cloth backed colour illustrated boards (a touch of nibbling around the edges); one double page, sixteen single page and two half page illustrations by Arai Yoshimune. A rather good copy. Au$200

First edition of of this modern thriller. I have little clue of what happens but when a well dressed - a la the west - young woman totes a revolver onto the front cover and faces a sword toting young woman in Japanese dress ... well, what more is there to say? The title more or less translates as 'Compatriots' Duel'.
This is a 'ball cover' (boru hyoshi, apparently a corruption of 'board') book - a signal of modernity and the Japanese equivalent of a yellowback: flimsy western style bindings with lithograph covers that rarely survive in such good shape.


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Exhibition - Tokyo 1890. 第三回内国勧業博覧会真景 [Dai Sankai Naikoku Kangyo Hakurankai Shinkei]. Okada Chubei 1890 (Meiji 23). 38x53cm engraving. Folded, rumpled with some smudges and a short tear in one margin. Au$125

The Third National Industrial Exhibition was, as often, a scaled back event: it was planned as an Asian exhibition. I can't find the first electric street car in Japan, unless what looks like an old locomotive with no smoke stack is a lazy artist's stand in. Still, there's no laziness anywhere else here.


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Kyoto Porcelain Company. A chomolithograph advertisement for the Chicago Columbian Exposition 1893. n.p. [1893]. 33x40cm chomolithograph. Short tear in a blank margin, a few small marks; quite good. Au$120

A handsome production, as it should be from Manufacturers and Decoraters to the Imperial Court of Japan.


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Hikifuda. Iwasaki Seishichi 栃木県都賀郡藤岡町 : 岩崎清七 Japanuese Sauce Manufactured by S. Iwasaki City - Fujioka, County - Shimotsuga, Province - Shimotsuke Japan [sic]. Tokyo [189-?]. 22x33cm lithograph. Au$100

A handsome birds-eye of the soy sauce works. The company still exists as a maker and seller of horse food, something of a come down since Iwasaki's glory days as a magnate and most important person. This view comes early in his career after he had taken over the family business and before he made two fortunes from the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars. He was outraged by the profiteering control ordinance passed during WWI and seems to have had some part in having it suspended.


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Dondontei Kiraku. 探偵実譚 : 稲妻強盗 [Tantei Jittan : Inazuma Goto]. Tokyo, Seiyodo 1899 (Meiji 32). 22x14cm publisher's colour illustrated wrapper; two double page frontispieces. Inked inscription on the back blank and last leaf of text; expected browning of the paper, some smudges and small flaws, rather good. Stab holes indicate this was once bound with something else. Without a back wrapper as issued, the colophon leaf is mounted over the neat stub of the front cover and spine. The NDL digital copy has advertising on the back of the colophon leaf - this one is blank - and at first glance has what appears to be a back wrapper but is a dark photocopy (probably) of the front wrapper mounted inside the back cover. Au$250

Japan's first pistol packing robber was Shimizu Sadakichi, arrested in 1887 after a five year rampage and five murders. But 1899's Lightning Robber - Inazuma Goto, the title of this book - was Sakamoto Keijiro, arrested in February1899 after escaping jail in 1895, a lot of robberies and three murders. Nothing about him using a gun, though. Shimizu was called the pistol robber. He was finally captured by policeman Ogawa Yoshiro who died the next year from his wounds. A bridge was named in his honour but the river was filled in and the bridge removed. He since got a plaque.
This was the stuff of sensation mongering of course, plays were performed in 1897 and 1899 and at least one other book appeared, in 1893. In 1899 four or more books called Lightning Robber appeared; that is, I found four titles but I don't know how many of them are different books. Japan's first feature film, 'Pisutoru Goto Shimizu Sadakichi' (pistol robber Shimizu Sadakichi) but also called 'Inazuma Goto', appeared the same year. Clearly Sakamoto's arrest sparked a frenzy of cash-ins, Shimizu was instantly resurrected and the pair conflated into the formidable desperado we see on this cover.
Remember, though, that this is a "true detective story" so I'm sure it's not as confusing as this description.Worldcat finds no copies outside Japan.


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Wax. Kitagumi & Co. Ltd. Kobe. Manufacturers & Exporters of Japan Vegetable Wax ... Kitagumi [190-?]. 38x51cm printed broadside in English and Japanese within a colour border. Au$75

A dignified but not unfriendly advertisement - or perhaps a label or wrapper for export - befitting the purest and whitest wax in the market. Company founder Kochi Torajiro must have used squillions of what he made from wax to build the Garyu-sanso, maybe the most understated, modest showoff piece of design and craftsmanship ever.


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Izumi Kojiro. 和洋家具雛形 [Wayo Kagu Hinagata]. Osaka, Matama Seikado 1902 (Meiji 35). Two volumes 12x18cm, publisher's wrappers with title labels; semi measured drawings throughout. Minor signs of use, rather good. Au$250

A nifty pattern book of Japanese and western furniture designs, clear enough that a decent carpenter/joiner could build straight from the book. There are several designs for display and shopfittings among the bureaus, tripod tables, screens and tansu.


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Exhibition - Osaka 1903. 第五回内国勧業博覧会明細図 [Daigokai naikoku kangyo hakurankai mesaizu]. Osaka, Azuma Shintaro 1903 [Meiji 36]. Colour lithograph 40x54cm. Au$150

A strong if roughly printed bird's-eye view. The Fifth National Industrial Exhibition in Osaka in 1903, while the last of the series begun in 1877 was the largest and included a lot of firsts. It was the first with a court for foreign countries - quite a few exhibited their wares. It was the first held at night - electricity and illumination was a great feature - and the Japanese public was introduced to wireless telegraphy, American automobiles, x-rays and cinema. A sixth exhibition scheduled for 1907 was to be an international exhibition but that plan fizzled. The Tokyo exhibition of 1907 was pretty grand but not what was hoped for after 1903. It was 1970 before Japan held a true international exhibition.


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Hikifuda. 土屋陸次郎 [Tsuchiya Rikujiro]. Osaka 1907 (Meiji 40). 26x38cm colour lithograph. A nice copy. Au$100

You'd think this smug gang of dandies - the seven lucky gods - would be advertising fashion but they are peddling some sort of pharmaceuticals made by Tsuchiya Rikujiro out of Tsukobo in the Okayama area. The drug trade is treating them well.
Hikifuda - small posters or handbills often handed out as seasonal gifts - were usually produced with the text panel blank. The customer, usually a retailer, had their own details over printed, so the same image might sell fine silk or soy sauce.


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Kosugi Misai. 冒険壮遊雙六 [Boken Soyu Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Hakubunkan 1908 (Meiji 41). 54x80cm colour printed broadside. Mild signs of use, rather good with the playing pieces in the top margin. Au$450

This stylish adventure sugoroku was the new year gift from the magazine Boken Sekai (Adventure World). A thrill seeking family jaunt around the world meeting sea serpents, sirens and ghouls of some sort, killing all sorts of large beasts on the way. Only father and the older son get to kill things but mother does get to drive a car, radical enough.
Kosugi Misai was another of those painters who started by studying western art and discovered Japanese art outside Japan; in his case in Paris in 1913.


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Sugoroku. 雙六応用お伽絵話 '元日の朝' [Sugoruku Oyo Otogi Ebanashi 'Ganjitsu no Asa']. Tokyo, Shonen 1909 (Meiji 42). 54x39cm colour printed broadside. A nice copy. Au$250

In this charming dream sugoroku, the new year gift from the magazine Shonen (Youth), we follow a boy's adventures in a kingdom of chickens.


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Nakamura Fusetsu. 世界一周双六 [Sekai Isshu Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Asahi Shimbun 1910 (Meiji 47). Colour printed broadside 55x78cm. A couple of nibbles to the margins; rather good with the playing pieces in the margin. Au$450

An elegant sugoroku - racing game - issued by the newspaper Asahi Shimbun to celebrate the 1910 Anglo-Japanese Exhibition in London. Nakamura was a star of the generation that studied western painting and went on to forge a new style of Japanese painting, enlivening magazine work and book illustration on the way.


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Fire safety poster. 火災予防デ : 火の用心 [Kasai Yobo De : Hinoyojin]. Kyotofu Shobosho [191-?] Colour lithograph poster 53x38cm mounted on canvas a little larger. A couple of closed tears. Au$750

An almost celebratory poster for Fire Prevention Day in Kyoto with more than a touch of circus poster about it.


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