Nakamura Kisen, Inoue Seiji & Yokoyama Kei. 漫画旅行 - 日本全国 [Manga Ryoko - Nihonzenzu ... ]. [Tokyo c1930?]. Ten colour printed broadside maps, each 55x77cm, bound together with a hand lettered front wrapper. Stitching broken, last map loose; there are tears and old, neat enough, repairs. Not bad. Au$500

Nakamura, Inoue and Yokoyama collaborated on a series of these manga maps of Japan, likely thirteen altogether. I have had a couple of these separately and wondered whether they fit together to make a giant romp round Japan. I still don't know but now I know why I have seen many single maps with the right edge oddly trimmed: it was obviously a thing to bind them like this.
I've been too lazy to work out which areas are here but I did recognise the Fukushima map, something none of us will see repeated: a fun tourist map of the Fukushima and Miyagi areas.

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Advertising & trade marks. A Japanese album of labels, trade marks, etc. n.p. early to mid c20th. 29x24cm cross stitch cloth album with 73 examples mounted on 24 black card leaves. Collector's ex libris stamp with the name 'Nanbu' on the front endpaper. Au$400

A carefully collected and presented gathering of labels, wrappers and similar trade mark advertising ephemera - from translucent tissue to stiif card - dating from early in the century into the 1930s.

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BRADSHAW, Lewis. Modern Mansions. A solution of the housing, the servant, and the drink problems, by a rational, an evolutionary, and a scientific method of housing reform. Kettering, Northamptonshire Printing [1908]. Octavo publisher's illustrated wrapper (spine ends neatly repaired); 80pp, six plates (five folding). Au$500

Bradshaw has, with good judgment, seeded sensible British calm through his title - rational, evolutionary, scientific - but this is, for England, a radical little book. Bradshaw proposes housing along lines not just co-operative but communal - he goes so far as to use the term 'collective'. He diverges from the high density urban solutions and the Garden City ideals then predominant among pioneering town planners. Proposed here are short rows of villas or terrace houses - possibly built using Edison's prefabricated concrete system - radiating out from a central amenities hall, these in turn radiating out from a circular town centre of markets and shops.
There are some intriguing parallels here with Garnier's schemes, worked out at about the same time but not published for another decade - given we leave out the epic grandeur of Garnier.

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EHRENBURG, Ilya. A Vse-Taki Ona Vertitsja. Moscow & Berlin, Gelikon 1922. Largish octavo publisher's illustrated wrapper; illustrations by Leger - as is the cover - and photo plates. Minor signs of use, pretty good. sold

First edition, apparently of 500 copies, of this "important programmatic document" (according to Edward Mozejko) which declares "with unprecedented enthusiasm that all forms of artistic creativity cannot exist but as objects, that there is no art beyond the limit of things." (in 'Modernism Volume 1' 2007) . The title is usually translated as 'And yet the world goes round' and I think 'programmatic document' can be translated as polemic or tract.
Chaplin, by the way, is hailed by Ehrenburg as a "futurist" and "constructor" in capitals (see p127).

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Binding. Cicero. M. Tullii Ciceronus Familiarum Epistolarum Libri XVI. Cum Hubertini Crescentinatus, Martini Philetici .. Manutii .. Venice, Johannem Mariam Bonellum 1567. folio (315x228mm); [4],257 leaves. Front endpaper removed, scattered spotting, marginal staining towards the end; not a bad copy. sold

A good edition but more importantly in an early and attractive binding of marbled paper over semi-limp boards (some surface loss along the hinges and extremities), spine hand lettered in red and black.
About a hundred years ago I did a lot of homework and became near convinced that this binding might be near contemporary with the book - ie decades before European marbled papers used like this are known. I put the book away until I could consult an expert and noticed it again today. In the intervening century all my notes and references have vanished and I'm too lazy to start again. I vaguely remember that my hopes rested on whether the endpapers watermarked with a cardinal's hat under trefoil - a characteristic 16th century Venetian watermark - also formed the inside lining of the boards.
If someone wants to take up the case - or if you want a nice old book - I offer it at pretty much what I paid for it.

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BAKER, Richard T. The Australian Flora in Applied Art. Part I The Waratah. Sydney, Tech Museum 1915. Small quarto, very good in publisher's cloth; numerous colour & b/w illustrations. Au$250

Part I is all published and apparently all Baker ever planned to publish. The book was part of his fervid campaign to have the Waratah made the national flower, and his chance to champion the designs of Lucien Henry which he had recovered from under a tub in a Surry Hills washhouse. It is a pity he never continued the series but he has produced probably Australia's most attractive book on applied arts. Lucien Henry's own pattern book remains unpublished, few of his realised designs survive .. this is about as close as we get.

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SANTIAGOE, Daniel. General Servant ... Ceylon Tea House Waiter. The Curry Cook's Assistant; or Curries and How to Make Them in England in Their Original Style. Third edition. London, Kegan Paul 1889. Small octavo publisher's decorated cloth; xx,80,[4]pp. A little spotting or browning but a nice copy. Au$750

There was a first edition of this and apparently a second but it seems no-one living has ever seen them. This has prefaces to the first (1887) and second editions but nothing other than the title page to indicate this is the third and not second edition. Santiagoe's preface tells us that his first edition was 500 copies of a sixpenny work. This enlarged edition cost a shilling in wrappers and probably 1/6 in cloth. I can't find a record of an earlier version and neither could Driver whose bibliography of British cookery books describes only this third edition.
For a while I thought Daniel Santiagoe was too good to be true - the fractured but lively English, the list of qualifications - but I've come to accept that, although nothing much is known about other than he was the author of this, he did exist. There is a portrait by John Lavery labelled as being him.
In short: an uncommonly good copy of an uncommon book, maybe the earliest existing edition of the first English curry book. Without pioneers like Santiagoe, British towns and cities would not now have a curry in every gutter come Friday night.

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Asian labour in Queensland. Seven parliamentary papers relating to the introduction of Chinese or 'Coolie' labourers from India: Asiatic Labour ... 1861; [with] Asiatic Labour (Despatches relative to.) ... 1861; [with] Coolie Immigration (petition in favor of.) ... 1861; [with] Chinese and Coolie Immigration ... Petition ... 1862; [with] Immigration of Chinese and Indian Coolies ... 1875; with Correspondence respecting Proposed Introduction of Labourers from British India ... 1884; [with] Labourers from British India (Further correspondence ...) ... 1884. Brisbane, Govt printers 1861 - 84. Foolscap, stitched, stapled or loose as issued. 4pp on three leaves; 15pp; 1pp; 1pp; 17pp; 16pp; 4pp. Au$450

Almost 60 foolscap pages of depressing reading as the landowners of Queensland seek to introduce the cheapest possible labour while the rest of white Queensland seeks to keep them out. Just by the way, was it cheaper to buy and keep a slave or import indentured labour? A good field hand in antebellum America was a serious investment. By the 1880s it becomes apparent that Queensland governments seek not to offend powerful landowners or risk the outrage of an electorate confronted with unwhite immigrants; they are busy sidestepping.
The early petitions make the point that it would be "unjust, even if it were practicable" for any Anglo-Saxon to "perform field labour under a tropical sun" while a thriving Queensland cotton industry stocked with Coolies would go a long way toward the abolition of slavery elsewhere.

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Telescope catalogue. Emil Busch A.G. Catalogue IVB. Portable Tourist, Hunting, Naval and Military Telescopes ... Rathenow, Busch [192-?]. 28x20cm publisher's printed wrapper; 32pp including three blanks at the end, illustrations throughout. Au$100

If you have time to burn you can spend a lot of it online looking at the trade in and conversations about Busch cameras, binoculars, microscopes and telescopes. When it comes to their telescopes you find a lot of guessing and the occasional wish for a catalogue to consult.

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PHILBY, H. St J. The Empty Quarter, being a description of the Great South Desert of Arabia known as Rub' al Khali. London, Constable 1933. Octavo publisher's olive cloth; photo illustrations, 3 folding maps. A bit of spotting to the foredge and a few of the prefatory pages; a rather good copy. Au$300

First edition.

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Exhibition, Kyoto 1895. Yoshiwara Takeo. 第四回勧業博覧会太極殿図 [Daiyonkai Kangyo Hakurankai Taikyoku Zenzu?]. Kyoto, Ide Shozo 1895 (Meiji 28) Lithograph 42x56, folded. A scattering of small wormholes and signs of use; not bad. Au$125

A bird's-eye view of the 4th National Industrial Exhibition held in Kyoto from April to the end of July 1895. Five of these national exhibitions were held between 1877 and 1903; the first three in Tokyo and, after some provincial agitation, this in Kyoto and the fifth in Osaka. Each was bigger, better and more crowded than their predecessor.

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Uemura Rokuro & Yoshida Keisuke 越中産紙手鑑 [Etchusanshishukan]. Washi Kenkyukai 1954. 30x22cm publisher's wrappers and folding cloth case; 45pp, three folding maps and two plates on various papers and 56 paper samples of various sizes. 250 copies were produced and were not for sale. An excellent copy. Au$300

Etchu washi are handmade papers that have been made in the Toyama region for quite a few hundred years.

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HASKOLL, W. Davis. Railway Construction, Second Series. Also Railways in the East, and generally in high thermometrical regions. London, Atchley 1864. Two volumes quarto, publishers blindstamped cloth (one spine repaired); iv,201pp, 91 plates (most folding). Some spotting but quite a good copy. Au$650

Despite the misleading title this is a re-issue of 'Railways in the East' - published the year before - with a new title page. Why it was re-issued this way is puzzling. Essential for the engineer in Asia Minor, Haskoll's earlier work 'Railway Construction' laid out the principles, 'Railways in the East' applies the lessons. With chapters on labour and materials, a chapter specific to Turkey, tunnels, bridges, stations, docks and jetties, rolling stock, masonry ... all illustrated from working drawings of executed works.

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Nakazawa Hiromitsu, Kobayashi Shokichi & Okano Sakae. 東洋未来雙六 [Toyo Mirai Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Hakubunkan 1907 (Meiji 40). Colour printed broadside, 55x78cm. Rather good. Au$750

A view, or a panoply of views, of a future Asia. Some of these vignettes of what's to come are obvious enough - schoolgirls at rifle drill and sumo wrestlers in striped bathers - but a few seem fairly recondite to me. I'm not sure how much is optimistic, how much is dire warning and how much is wearily stoic.
Nakazawa, Kobayashi and Okano, still young, had been fellow students at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, and of Kuroda Seiki, and collaborated on the five volume Nihon Meisho Shasei Kiko, issued over several years.

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Yamashita Kishi(?) 世界未来戦双六 [Sekai Mirai-Sen Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Shogaku Gonensei 1937 (Showa 12). Colour broadside 54x789cm. Minor signs of use, quite good. Au$400

Despite the grim colour scheme - a feature of the late thirties - this is a heart-racing view of future war. It was the new year gift from the elementary school magazine for 5th graders, Shogaku Gonensei.

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Maruo Shiyo. 名探偵切名競ベ双六 [Mei Tantei Setsu-Mei Kurabe Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Omoshiro Kurabu 1926 (Taisho 15). Colour broadsheet 55x79; some marks, splits in folds and small holes. Used but not bad. On the back is a monochrome baseball game that looks dull. Au$300

Maybe not the best copy of this captivating detective sugoroku but since I can't trace another copy I won't take the chance on waiting for a better one. This was the new year gift from the magazine Omoshiro Kurabe - the Interesting Club.

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Kon Wajiro & Yoshida Kenkichi. モデルノロヂオ - 考現学 [Moderunorojio - Kogengaku]. Tokyo, Shun'yudo 1930 (Showa 5). Large octavo publisher's decorated cloth blocked in white, red and black, chipped dustwrapper with a couple of old tape marks inside; 361pp, profusely illustrated throughout, a few photo or colour plates. Light browning; a remarkably good copy of a book that invites continual thumbing. Au$1500

First printing. There may be a better copy of this out there but I'm yet to see it. This is an extraordinary book; the gospel of Modernology, hard to find in decent condition and very hard with a dustwrapper. Kon and Yoshida have compiled an encyclopaedia, surely unsurpassed, of the apparently ordinary, of the people of Tokyo, fit to provoke unseemly enthusiasm in theoreticians and urban planners ever since. I gather that Kon's thesis - born out of watching the people of Tokyo begin to rebuild after the 1923 earthquake and fire - is that those who do the planning, designing and official building know nothing of what people actually do, what they own and how they use those things - how they live and who they are.

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LOCKYER, Norman. The Sun's Place in Nature. London, Macmillan 1897. Octavo, excellent in publisher's cloth; 360pp, 82 illustrations. Au$125

The last of Lockyer's major books on the sun, all of which are fundamental in the history of astrophysics. While his intention is to record the most recent researches and conclusions (many of them "entirely novel .. very close criticism was to be expected, and, indeed to be hoped for"), he does lace a fair amount of history through the book. This includes accounts of his discovery of helium in 1868, subsequent researches by himself and others, and Ramsay's discovery of terrestrial helium in 1895. Later chapters focus on the classification of stars, new laboratory work and the rival hypotheses of himself and Vogel.

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GUERINI, Vincenzo. A History of Dentistry, from the most ancient times until the end of the eighteenth century. Philadelphia, Lea & Febiger 1909. Large octavo, excellent in publisher's green cloth; 20 plates, 104 illustrations through the text. Au$200

First and best edition. I notice that Guerini is still being quoted and occasionally argued with in recent papers on dental history.

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Shop signs. 新看板図案工作集 [Shin Kanban Zuan Kosakushu]. Tokyo, Seibundo Shinkosha 1938 (Showa 13). 26x19cm publisher's cloth (small chip from the spine) and printed card slipcase; 194pp, numerous b/w line drawings and photo illustrations, 17 colour and another eight plates printed in green. Au$400

Second printing or issue? This appeared the year before as a special number of the journal Kokoku Kai - advertising world. A collection of new advertising and shop signs which is both a treasury of existing signs - most Japanese with a selection from Europe - and offers design suggestions and practical tips. There's a few I want, the giant ear with a phonograph implant high on the list.
Worldcat finds no copies.

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Hikifuda. 六神丸 アプト - 富山製剤株式会社 [Rokujinmaru aputo - Toyama Seizai Kabushikigaisha]. Toyama Pharmaceutical [191-?]. Three lithographs 39x18cm each. Au$300

A trio of carols to modernity, the future and whatever it is that Rokujinmaru - some sort of herbal medicine - does. Presumably it makes children joyous, smart and ready to speed into the future.

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Wada Sanzo. 色名総鑑 [Shikimei Sokan]. Tokyo, Shunjusha 1931 (Showa 6). 20x12cm publisher's cloth case with title label with 160 mounted colour samples on 56 accordian folding card leaves and wrappered book; 178pp and some tables (two folding). The usual offsetting of the card; a nice copy. Colour samples named in Japanese, English and occasionally French or German; two of the tables are multi language lists of colour names. The top edge of the colour cards are gilded and the apparently plain paper lining of the case has a pattern of transparent glazed shapes printed on it. Au$550

First edition of Wada's first serious attempt at colour nomenclature. Wada, though at the top of the art ladder in Japan, insisted on pursuing new directions and founded the Japan Standard Color Association, now the Japan Color Research Institute, in 1927. In these early years science, art and aesthetics went hand in hand.

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YOUNG, Rev. W. Report on the Condition of the Chinese Population in Victoria. Melbourne, Govt Printer 1868. Foolscap folio, stitched as issued; 30pp. A small slip was sometime pinned at the bottom of the first two leaves, leaving marks; no great grief. Au$750

By 1868 the Chinese population of Victoria was on the wane - estimated at less than half its peak at the height of the goldrush - but "vicious practices"were seemingly on the rise. Chief among these were, of course, gambling and opium but their by-products, larceny and robberies, were a growing threat. Young suggested that the decline or disbandment of Chinese Associations had a directly negative effect on crime and has provided a translation of the rules of an association to illustrate to the government the benefit of these associations to the community.
The first part of his report is both valuable and touching in that Chinese translators have provided statistics for each of the areas with Chinese communities; these statistics then are personal and idiosyncratic in their focus, providing the closest thing we have to a Chinese view of themselves at the time. Young includes a report by Dr Clendenning on the condition of Chinese lepers at Ballarat, and then finishes with his own report and suggestions for improvements, including the restitution of 'Headmen', the improvement of interpreters, education in English, Chinese police officers and so on. However, given the "abnormal condition of the great mass" (ie no women), in present circumstances it was best to encourage them to all go home.
Young was an LMS missionary to the Chinese, apparently of Scottish-Malay descent, who had served in Amoy before coming to Victoria in the mid fifties. The impression given by this report and other documents of the period is that he was one of very few non-Chinese in the colony that had any grasp of any Chinese language.

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KAUFFMAN, Reginald Wright. Miss Frances Baird Detective - A Passage From Her Memoirs. Boston, Page 1906. Octavo publisher's illustrated pale blue cloth blocked in ochre, blue and black; colour frontispiece. Minimal signs of use, particularly with such foolishly vulnerable pale cloth, a nice copy. Au$300

First edition of the advent of this professional detective - she reappears in a 1910 novel. Miss Baird is young, good looking, well educated, smart but not infallible - at the start she is under a cloud with her boss for bungling a number of cases. And she works by necessity: she is behind in her rent.
A tangle of murder and twice stolen jewels is unravelled here, with a plot twist that was echoed sixty odd years later by P.D. James in a thriller that also stars a young woman detective scratching to pay her rent.

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MOLLOY, J. Fitzgerald. How Came He Dead? NY, Lovell [1890?]. Octavo publisher's decorated cloth blocked in silver and gilt. Cover a touch marked, stitching a bit loose; quite good. Au$300

First edition, it seems, of a now obscure and rare thriller that may well be among the most widely read novels in late colonial Australia. I don't say it was a best seller - I find no evidence that any copy of this book ever reached Australia - but it was serialised in newspapers in, at least, Brisbane and Gippsland and likely in provincial papers yet to be unearthed. It was also serialised in at least one New Zealand paper and in the US, which is presumably how Lovell got hold hold of it.
This is an English tale of modern villainy populated by London society and ornamented with an Irish dungeon, mysterious Indian poisons and brazen coincidence. In all, satisfying verandah reading from Queensland to Victoria. Other Molloy syndicated serial thrillers did make it to book form in England but I can't discover that there was ever an English edition of this.

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TAUT, Bruno. Houses and People of Japan. London, Gifford 1937. Quarto publisher's coarse cloth and dustwrapper (the spine of the dustwrapper fragmented but essentially complete); [6],xiv,318pp, 535 illustrations, some tipped colour plates. An excellent copy. Au$750

First edition, English issue. It appeared with the Sanseido imprint or this Gifford imprint, though usually we see the Gifford issue dated 1938. The dustwrapper is Sanseido's. An unusually good copy of a book that didn't wear well.

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POUCHET, Georges. The Plurality of the Human Race: translated and edited ... by Hugh J.C. Beavan. Longman, for the Anthropological Society 1864. Octavo publisher's cloth. A nice copy. Au$200

Pouchet did little to advance his father's belated theories of spontaneous generation but his theories of separate species of humanity were perfectly timed. His intention seems less to be to establish racial supremacy - unlike Gobineau and most of the American polygenesists, being French he probably saw no need to press an already ineffaceable advantage - than to cudgel Christianity.
This English translation is invaluable for having been prepared by a horrified Englishman of the upright and conscientious type; the best type. Having been charged with the task Beavan has dutifully prepared it for presentation to the English public despite his raging disapproval: "when Author and Editor differ so considerably ... such very peculiar ideas ... I am sorry to find in it opinions with which I cannot at all agree ... science is strained in an unnatural manner .. entirely unproved ... much to be regretted ... Author and Editor are in entire disagreement ... better left unsaid ..." come from his quite short preface. Still, he has been unable to restrain himself from peppering the book with angry footnotes.

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WEBER, Max. The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. Being part I of Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. London, Hodge 1947. Octavo publisher's cloth. A very good copy. Au$50

First English translation.

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Textile sample book. 澤印 [cover title] 京染呉服卸商 [Sawa Shirushi - Kyozome Gofuku Oroshisho]. Kyoto, Sawada Shoten [190-?]. 23x16cm publisher's cloth (discoloured) with bone clasp; 100 silk samples in accordian folding heavy printed card mounts.
With another defective sample book with 30 of 32 samples of dyed cottons. Au$225

Finely grained, creped and patterned silks for kimonos. The name Sawada is still connected with kimonos in Kyoto but I can't trace any relationship. The current Sawada Shoten in Kyoto sells work clothes and was founded in 1968.

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Exhibition - Tokyo 1907 東京勧業博覧会図会 - 風俗画報 [Tokyo Kangyo Hakurankai Zue - Fuzoku Gaho]. Tokyo, Fuzoku Gaho 1907. Five volumes 26x19cm, publisher's colour illustrated wrappers; a large folding colour view in the first issue, at least two double page colour illustrations in each of the others, monochrome plates and photo illustrations. Au$500

A set of the five special issues of the Fuzoku Gaho devoted to the 1907 Tokyo Industrial Exhibition. The Fuzoku Gaho (1889 - 1916) was Japan's first graphic magazine. I'd like to know who the artist was of some of these plates.* They masterfully capture the eagerness for the new, the wonder, the distractions, the shared delights, and the weary resignation of some parents.
The 1907 exhibition was conceived as an international exhibition but this ambition fizzled due to lack of enthusiasm, if not nerve, on the part of officialdom. Nonetheless this was big stuff, expansive in its inclusion of technology, culture, the arts and popular entertainment - introducing not one but two ferris wheels to Tokyo. It did pretty good business, atttracting some six or seven million visitors.
*A generous customer has told me that the coloured frontispieces and some other illustrations, where the signature can be read, are by Yamamoto Shoun, also known as Matsutani - which appears to me to be the signature on the admirable illustrations.

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