A universal truth in all times and all cultures

小學入門 : 教授繪解 [Shogaku Nyumon : kyoju etoki]. Tokyo, Kodama Yashichi 1877 (Meiji 10). 18x12cm publisher's colour woodcut front wrapper, illustrated throughout. A revolting copy. Au$300

Give someone young - or young at heart - a picture of a face, an implement, a spare moment, and they will draw a moustache on that face.
There are quite a few versions of Shogaku Nyumon - elementary school texts - under different titles, varying in subject, charm, interest and form. This one, called the professor's illustrated guide, is rare and would be charming ... if. I've taken the publication details from the single opac entry I could find, not from the rag of colophon at the end of the book.
Note that our artist has also added the other touch essential once they were invented: spectacles on the swinging boy in the background.

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掌中 : 新貨定規略 [Shochu : Shinka Jogi Ryaku]. Kagoshima Prefecture, Dajokan 1871 (Meiji 4). 36x49cm folding into 12x6cm publisher's wrapper with title label (a bit grubby); woodcut illustrations of coins in colours. Rather good. Au$200

A palm size guide - until it's unfolded - to the new currency issued by the Ministry of Finance. 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. 1871 must have been a tough year for the slower thinking Japanese - I'm still hazy about metrification - and 1871 bought a new calendar, new system of time keeping, new currency, a new education system, new haircuts ...
I can only find mention of this in two provincial museums in Japan, nowhere else.

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Ambrotype photograph of two young women dressed as men. n.p. (c1880?). 104x76mm with a piece from the bottom right. Original kiri wood case with modern replacement of the loose inner frame. A quarter plate, which is generous for a Japanese ambrotype. Some scratches; a strong and clear image. 
Inscription inside the case, likely by the photographer, indicates that the photo was taken in Tachiai-cho in Tsu, now the capital city of Mie prefecture. The indistinct smudges on the back of the case apparently give the ages and partial names of the sitters but defied even the expert who gave me what I have to make proper sense of it. They read Hisa and Fuji where I saw "cut it out" and eight shillings. So, thanks to Counsell-sama, "20 year old Hisa" and "14 year old Fuji" is the current diagnosis.  Au$8000

As we all know, despite what we're told, the world is a simple place. So let me explain 19th century Japanese photography to you. For the second half of the century there were two types of photographs: prints on paper which were public, they were made to be sold, given away or displayed in albums; and photographs on glass - ambrotypes - which were private. Ambrotypes were the choice for people who wanted a portrait for themselves and their family. They were cheaper and they were protected in a kiri wood case; fragile treasures enhanced by their inherent luminosity. Souvenir photos of group occasions aren't unknown but, of course, a photograph had to be taken for each sitter who wanted one. An ambrotype is a fixed negative on glass which becomes positive against a black background.
Here's something I've never seen before. Not just two young women in drag but two women having fun. They are lampooning the postures and attitudes of self important men trying to make an effect. The gaping neckline and that belligerent grimace on the face of the standing woman is exactly that of men who want to be seen as tough, as warriors. The sitting woman is a cultured gentleman, serene in the certainty of his perfection. The faithful retainer defies us to raise a hand, a word even, against his master; the master gazes over our shoulder into worlds we will never share. That book is no accident. If you can find a thousand ambrotypes of Japanese women I doubt you will find ten who do not look uneasy, uncomfortable, doleful, morose, sullen, anxious or some combination of them all.
There's a heap of stuff written about gender and sex in Japan and another heap about 19th century photography in Japan but I'm yet to find any suggestion that such a thing as this photo might exist. So how did this photograph happen? This is the time of straitened social tolerance for Japan; not that women ever benefited much from Japan's famous gender and sexual tolerance. Where did they get such well tailored outfits? This is half a lifetime, at least, before the advent of women's theatre companies. And much longer since women were banned from the stage. These are not some geishas or working girls frocked up by a commercial photographer to enact an exotic scene for sale to tourists. An ambrotype meant that this was and remained private. No copies can be made, the negative leaves with its owner. Who were this fabulous pair?

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WOOD, H.F. [Harry Freeman]. The Englishman of the Rue Cain. London, Chatto & Windus 1889. Octavo publisher's illustrated cloth blocked in black and grey (spine faded and a bit rubbed). Publisher's catalogue for October 1888 at the end. Canted but rather good and fresh inside. Au$135

First edition of this murder mystery set in Paris involving a missing heir, cross dressing villains, a cavalcade of detectives and all manner of complications. Wood's second mystery after The Passenger From Scotland Yard the year before. The Spectator surprises by beginning their review most favourably but are more characteristic by the end: " a really clever novel; its detective elements are good; but the story ... has a certain air of incoherency."

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Exhibition - Tokyo 1881. Utagawa Kunitoshi. 第二回内国勧業博覧会 [Dai Nikai Naikoku Kangyo Hakurankai]. Tokyo, Shimizu Kahei 1881 (Meiji 14). 38x26cm colour woodcut (a bit rumpled). Au$300

A useful birds-eye view of the second national industrial exhibition, held in Ueno Park in 1881. It, despite hard times, quadrupled in size and almost doubled the attendance of the first, 1877, exhibition. Centre stage is the clock tower by Kaneda Ichibei.

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Papua the Marvellous. The country of chances. [Melbourne, Govt Printer [1910?]. Octavo publisher's flush cut cloth; 52pp and 10 photo plates. A read but decent enough copy. Au$175

A superbly concise lesson in how to pillage a country and exploit a people, with little capital and a healthy profit. No more exterminating the natives "as a simple matter of ordinary routine," nor even are tribes now "spared, but enslaved". The modern ruler civilizes, reforms and uses them for "honestly developing the country." It won't be long before the "cannibals of the west will be almost worth their weight in gold."
Australia was still the new owner of its very own colony. A few more years brought German New Guinea as a war prize and proper large scale corruption but in the meantime, with a few hundred quid and a bit of nous, a bloke could do pretty well.

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Hamada Masuji, Sugiura Hisui and others. 現代商業美術全集 [Gendai Shogyo Bijutsu Zenshu - The Complete Commercial Artist]. Tokyo, Ars 1928-30 (Showa 3 - 5). 24 volumes quarto, publisher's cloth or wrappers, printed card slipcases for a few wrappered volumes; thousands of illustrations, most colour. A used but solid mixed set, most of the wrappered volumes have chipped spines; the cloth volumes dulled and rubbed - but they are never pretty anyway. Inside all quite good. Au$2500

A complete set of the Shogyo Bijutsu, one of the great monuments of Japanese modernism. Largely the work of Hamada Masuji - credited with the invention of design as a profession in Japan - it is an encyclopaedic gathering of all that is new and exciting in Russia, Europe, Britain and America from art nouveau to bauhaus and constructivism, with futurism, expressionism, dada and everything else along the way lavishly mixed with Japanese responses to, and digestion of, these western ideas. Any number of exciting artists and designers contributed.
Each volume is devoted to a topic or related topics and commercial design here means more than it does to us. So as well as volumes on posters, advertisements, billboards, typography, and similar graphic arts (like bookbindings, magazine, brochure and catalogue covers, packaging, labels, trademarks and placards), there are volumes devoted to the architecture of the shop from the mightiest department store to the most chic Parisian shop window and the display within. Exterior and interior design, showcases and fittings - shops, restaurants, cinemas, even a barber shop or beauty parlour is laid out. One volume is devoted to lighting: neon lights, the lighting of commercial spaces and illuminated signs. Another volume is devoted to kiosks, pavilions and floats, festive decoration, facades, gateways and entrances, while the following volume continues into international exhibitions. Volume 22 is devoted to traditional Japanese shop signs and banners, a treat in itself, while volume 14 explores photography and humour in graphic art - so German photo-montage and French caricature share a volume.
*Rather than do any work I've re-used old photos of the contents of these. The outside picture is new, the inside not so much.

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Kawabata Ryushi. 少年未来旅行双六 [Shonen Mirai Ryoko Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Nihon Shonen 1918 (Taisho 7). Colour broadside 78x54cm. Some browning and minor signs of use; not bad. Au$500

The New Year gift from the boy's magazine Nihon Shonen. A view of travel in the future, this is among my favourites of the travel adventure sugoroku and hard to find in anything like one piece. Doubtless it was a favourite with many others too.
Kawabata did several of the best, most captivating, sugoroku of the period. His career took a curious turn during a 1913 stay in America to study western painting. Apparently he was so impressed with the Japanese art he saw in Boston he switched to being a Nihonga painter. Still, he remained being an illustrator for magazines for quite some time. As did most of the early to mid 20th century artists now revered.

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DINSDALE, Alfred. Television .. foreword by Dr. J.A. Fleming. London, Television Press 1928. Octavo publisher's boards and dustwrapper; xx,180,[2 adverts]pp, photo ills, diagrams. Some browning of wrapper and edges; rather good. Au$750

Second edition and harder to find than the first, particularly with dustwrapper. Much enlarged and updated since the first of 1926, which was pretty well devoted to describing Baird's experiments and accomplishment: his successful demonstration in January 1926. Here Dinsdale has filled in two busy years and become more technical. Baird published little - his work is mostly recorded in this book and the later books of Moseley.

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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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LOUGHEED, Victor. Vehicles of the Air. A popular exposition with working drawings. Chicago, Reilly and Britton 1909. Solid octavo publisher's cloth; 479pp and some 269 photo illustrations and diagrams etc through the text. Quite a good copy. Au$150

First edition and right up to date; published in November 1909 it covers the Paris Aeronautical Salon which closed in mid October. I hope whoever organised the illustrations for this book was never allowed near the blueprint of a machine. I trust it wasn't Lougheed, who designed motors. Nor his brothers who became Lockheed Aircraft Company.
Lougheed anticipates a future with small machines for one or two persons, cheaper than a motorcycle; more or less an evolutionary step from the motor car in terms of individual freedom. So, who was the first personal flyer tease? Leonardo? Or am I missing someone much earlier?

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Minamimura Takashi. ロボット怪獣 - サイボーグ怪獣 [Robotto Kaiju - Saibogu Kaiju]. Original illustration for the magazine Shonen. n.p. [c1960?]. Illustration in ink and watercolour on card 27x20cm, tapemarks in the margins. Lettering and inset illustration pasted on. Au$950

Minamimura was the master of apocalyptic aliens, monsters and outer space. No-one does devastation, cars and trains flying like debris, and crumbling skyscrapers with more relish. A useful annotated diagram of our robot-cyborg monster is inset - the text can be read on a photocopy of the finished magazine page that comes with this. The pasted inset robot is a revision: held up to the light we can see a much bulkier monster underneath. Minamimura calls this a cyborg monster which might date it to after May 1960 when 'cyborg' was supposedly first used by Clynes & Kline in a paper for the Space Flight Symposium and reported in the New York Times.

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Oil. Petroleum. (Correspondence, &c., Respecting Existence of, in New South Wales.) Sydney, Govt Printer 1867. Foolscap folio sewn as issued (a bit used); 22pp, litho map & 2 plates, illustrations through the text. Au$750

The first publication of any note on petroleum in Australia, or at least the possibility of it, and necessary investigations, results of examinations, and so on. The search seems to have been kicked off in 1866 by William Fane de Salis sending out a copy of Lesley's 1865 paper on the Kentucky petroleum basin, "the only paper as yet published giving any reliable scientific account of the strata," in the hopes that comparative work could be done. That paper is reprinted here, from the copy kindly given by Murchison.
What is not in this paper but is in the columns of The Empire is that the Minister for Lands ignored the offer of de Salis and that a Lands Department clerk responded, "the Minister for Lands does not consider it advisable to republish Mr Lesley's pamphlet as proposed by you". Neither would the Lands Department, 'this incubus,' release Lesley's paper for The Empire to print, prompting the outraged columnist of The Empire to mutter darkly about the ''little games played some time ago in the matter of certain mineral lands at Illawarra.'' ''Is there a disinterested and intelligent man in the colony who does not believe in his heart that the blowing of the Lands Office into perdition, with all its accumulated stores of red tape, useless maps, and sickening arrears of correspondence, would be one of the best things that could happen for the welfare of the community?"
All this is not quite true, the correspondence in this paper tells a slightly different story but still, in all this is an education in the power of print, most obvious in the ability of the press to push along a recalcitrant bureaucracy. But more interesting is the potency held by what was considered the sole copy of an otherwise unobtainable pamphlet. Lesley's paper itself is rare, certainly it was missed by Swanson's bibliography of oil and gas. It's almost unnecessary to add that this Australian paper also doesn't appear.

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魯西亜人 [Roshia Jin]. n.p. mid c19th. 40x28cm, ink drawing in colour. Sometime laid down, browned around the edges, old horizontal fold. Au$450

A good, very good, portrait of an important Russian made at the time that these foreigners began swarming around Japan in hopes of an treaty. The Russians raced to beat Perry as soon as they heard his squadron was on the move but weren't fast enough. Still, they with England, France and Germany managed get some share of the pie.
I think all those seals are collector's seals, a sign that this has long been regarded as pretty damn good. That pose, one hand over the heart (or guarding a wallet?), the other clutching a weapon appears on a few kawaraban and prints with changes in weaponry and decorations. I repeat that, to me, there is seldom any point in trying to track what was copied from where in pictures like these; rather enjoy the variations on a theme.

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長崎の圖 [Nagasaki no zu]. Nagasaki, Ohata Bunjiemon 1778 (An'ei 7). Woodcut map with a secondary grey block 66x89cm on four joined sheets. Faint sign that it did once fold into a cover. A little browning, rather good. Au$1200

An early edition of Bunjiemon's Nagasaki map, reworked with minor upgrades for another century; until Nagasaki was made obsolete as the only place to get news of foreigners.

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Hayashi Taidichi. 少年未来双六 [Shonen Mirai Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Nihon Shonen 1927 (Taisho 16). Colour broadside 54x79cm. Rather good. Au$450

This is a future to look forward to. Mostly. The gas warfare is not so inviting but at least the horses get protective suits. And it's only fair that giant edible frogs should have a chance to eat us. This was the new year gift from the magazine Nihon Shonen - Japanese Boy.
Hayashi redesigned Tokyo after the earthquake and fire - in 1924's new year sugoroku - to be a wonderful utopia for boys of all ages. Mostly there is no Taisho 16 but this was produced the year before, before the change in emperors.

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Shochikuza News. Osaka, Shochiku 1931-32. Nine issues, 22x15cm publisher's colour illustrated wrappers; mostly four pages and covers. Au$500

A small, well chosen group. Shochiku, now part of the megafauna of Japanese entertainment, spread into film from Kabuki in 1920, built Japan's first western theatre in Osaka in 1923, and soon had a chain of cinemas showing foreign movies. This was their weekly news letter. I think the cover was shared but the contents were printed for each theatre. Inspired and aspiring young designers presumably worked on the usual terms: no credit and less money. There is quite a bit of remarkable anonymous graphic art of the twenties and early thirties with the Shochiku-za banner. Not all of it is good but what is can be fabulous. As the thirties progressed the adventurousness evaporated and by the mid-late thirties they looked like film magazines from anywhere.

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Les premiers pas de l'enfance. Orthgraphe Francaise, a l'usage de l'ecole quai-sei-zio. Premier edition. Yedo ... (1867). [sic]. Yedo (Tokyo), 1867 (Keio 3). 18x13cm publisher's wrappers with printed label (marked, stitching broken); 32pp including 10 pages of alphabets. Pretty good. The red stamp on the title is the school's. Au$300

The Kaiseijo (quai-sei-zio or Kaisezio or Kaiseizyo or Kaiseidzio or Kaiceizio depending on who wrote it) was the Bakumatsu school for barbarian studies, founded in 1857 and re-named in 1863. In 1865 the military joined in with this maybe unwelcome but necessary education and, I've read, quadrupled the number of students with 300 learning English and 100 learning French. It seems they began printing their own texts in 1866. Come Meiji it became the Kaisei gakko and eventually part of the conglomerate that became Tokyo University.
It's easy for blinkered anglophones like me to forget that the Japanese were busily digesting the whole planet, not just learning fractured English from absurd phrase books. They learnt many fractured languages from absurd texts and still somehow leapt into the modern world.

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Strait Gate to the Kingdom of Western Knowledge. 正則 英語獨案内 [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 and both neighbours open right to left.

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Tatsunosuke Hori et al. 英和対訳袖珍辞書 A Pocket Dictionary of the English and Japanese Language. Second and revised edition. At Yedo 1867. Tokyo, Kuradaya Seiemon 1869 (Meiji 2). Two volumes 15x22cm contemporary limp boards (battered, stitching broken but all solid enough). Stains, mostly at each end and some fairly mild worming at the very end. Sensibly divided into two volumes toward the end of N. Used but comparatively handsome copy of a book usually found as an incomplete wreck.
Inscription in red on the back of the title: "This Book belongs to Miyake" and Miyake ownership seals and inscription at the end. Au$1100

Actually a new printing of the 1867 edition as, I suspect, are several of the copies catalogued by folk who haven't looked properly at the very end of the book. Tatsunoske's first edition appeared in 1862; apparently 200 copies were printed. A second revised edition arrived in 1866 and the 1867 printing has the English type newly made into wood blocks. Then comes our 1869 printing with the notice of approval (1869) on the last page and Kuradaya's name inside the back cover. And the Kaiseisho - the Bakumatsa school - seal on the tile and/or at the end has been changed for the Tokugawa seal. If you want to get fussy: this is type B of the colophon designated by Tomo Endo in his census of copies in Eigakushi Kenkyu (2006).
It seems accepted that this was the first English-Japanese dictionary. The Angeriagorian Taisei was compiled in 1814 but that has been dismissed as a word book - a mere 6000 words - and was only circulated in manuscript among the chosen few. A Japanese-English dictionary followed ours a few years later.

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Kawaraban. 教育参考萬国動物大會々主宮城 [and] 主宮城 久吉 [Kyoiku Sanko Mankoku Dobutsu Daikaikai Shu Miyagi?] + [Shu Miyagi Hisayoshi?]. n.p. n.d. (mid 19th century). 1. 40x54cm woodcut. Old folds; a short closed tear quite good. 2. 20x27cm, woodcut. On the back are a fair few neat notes that I think are dated Meiji 4 (1871). Au$500

I've seen a couple of similar menageries with similar titles and find this the most appealing. One, that I take to be earlier, has plenty of character but is sparse, less lively. The other, I take to be later, is as crowded but looks more like any number of animals-of-the-world illustrations from anywhere in the world. I've also seen this same print with title across the top.
The kangaroos I'm sure everyone in the world can identify but even an expert naturalist might be surprised by the Mountain Shark of Australia in the bottom right corner. The uncharacteristically cheerful wombat, top left, is of course a bear.

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Maruo Shiyo. 名探偵功名競べ双六 [Mei Tantei Komyo Kurabe Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Omoshiro Kurabu 1926 (Taisho 15). Colour broadsheet 55x79. A couple of small repairs on the back, pretty good. On the back is a monochrome baseball game that looks dull. Au$400

An elusive and captivating detective sugoroku. This was the new year gift from the magazine Omoshiro Kurabe - the Interesting Club.

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Architecture competition. 国際謝恩塔 [Kokusai Shaonto]. Tokyo, Koyosha 1924 (Taisho 13). 19x13cm, loose as issued in publisher's printed boards; 50 leaves, mostly plates printed on one side (actually 48 as two are double page carrying two numbers); renderings, elevations and plans. An excellent copy. sold

This is from the apparently endless series of small architecture monographs, Kenchiku Shashin Riuju. I wonder if anyone knows how many there were. Some are intriguing and some are pretty drab. Many require a dogged love of gateways and tea rooms. This one's up top.
Here are the winners and honourable mentions from a competition for a tower of gratitude for international aid after the 1923 earthquake. First and second prizes are graced with overwrought dramatics but are hardly radical. Things get more interesting after that.
Outside Japan, Worldcat finds an entry at Queensland University, dated 1929 for some reason, but the university's four entries for the title, including a microform, don't actually locate a copy.

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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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