First word of the bomb

Takeo Takei. 原子爆彈 [Genshi Bakudan (ie: Atomic Bomb)]. Tokyo, Domei Tsushinsha September 1945. Octavo printed wrapper; 32pp including wrapper, untrimmed and loose (apparently as issued). Rather browned and a bit frayed round the edges. Au$750

Published as Domei Sosho No.1 by Domei - the national news agency - on 20th September 1945, apparently the day before the US occupation censorship had time to be fully implemented.* Domei Sosho no.2 was on the Potsdam declaration and there, I think, the series ended. I have read that 200,000 copies of this were printed. Worldcat locates one copy outside Japan - in Australia - and it doesn't appear in the catalogue of the Prange collection - the world's largest collection of occupation era documents, collected by the official historian to the occupation.
There is still nothing much to be found in English on Takeo or his pamphlet. As I can best figure, the story is that Takeo was a scientific and/or political correspondent for Domei and spoke English. He and a colleague listened in to allied broadcasts, translated Truman's statement on the bombing of Hiroshima and were the first to tell the Japanese government that the "new bomb" was an atomic bomb. Takeo's widow and son published a memorial book in 1995 with background and contemporary papers which doesn't seem to have worked its way to writers in English. From my stumbling through a review of that book I get the impression that Takeo was seen as an apologist for the US and their use of the bomb which was unfair. He was attempting to give as objectively as possible as much information as he could and what information he had came only from what could he could scrape together from radio broadcasts. How much of this view of him was long after the fact I don't know. He had been or became - I'm not clear on this - a communist journalist which can't have endeared him to any authorities.
There is a modern facsimile of this which may or may not be related to the book published by Mrs Takeo - it seems likely. That should not be mistaken for this. Neither should Takeo Takei the journalist be confused with Takeo Takei the illustrator.

*Nuclear physicist Sagane Ryokichi's 'Genshi Bakudan' published in October had two sections removed by the censor from every copy.

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Du BOISGOBEY, Fortune & Kuroiwa Ruiko (translator). 玉手箱 [Tamatebako]. Tokyo, Okawa 1895. 22x14cm publisher's colour lithograph illustrated wrapper; 386pp, three double page illustrations at the beginning, double and single page illustrations scattered through the text. Some grubby thumb prints and other signs of use but a pretty good copy. Au$200

First published in 1891 this is a translation of 'The Closed Door', in turn a translation of 'Porte Close' (1886), which indicates that Ruiko worked from a cheap, presumably pirated, American edition. The authorised translations were titled 'The Condemned Door'.
Ruiko was busy. Apart from journalism, running newspapers and writing what might be the first modern Japanese detective novel he kickstarted Japanese detective fiction by publishing a squillion translations or adaptations of novels by authors like Jules Verne, Gaboriau, Hugh Conway, Anna Katherine Green, Marie Corelli, A.M. Williamson, George Griffith, H.G. Wells and most of all, Du Boisgobey. Translation is an approximate description of Ruiko's work; he was open about slashing, expanding and rewriting his material to fit what he wanted the novel to say.

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Catalogue - furniture. Hasegawa Denjiro. たんす: 茂久録 [Tansu : Mokuroku}. Tokyo, Hasegawa 1907 (Meiji 40). 22x15cm publisher's printed wrapper; [2],32pp, illustrated throughout. Minor signs of use, quite good in original stamped postal envelope. Loosely inserted two sheets (one quite long) with text and an ink sketch of a cabinet on one and a careful measured pencil drawing on the other. This is a variant of their no.45. Au$175

According to the introduction, this is the third catalogue of Tansu - mobile cabinets - from the workshop of Hasegawa, following catalogues in 1905 and 1906. NDL finds a 1905 copy which is a slight thing with 12 pages and 15 illustrations. I can't find a record of any others.
This illustrates some fittings and 49 models with occasional concessions to westernisation. The greatest concession is, of course, mass production and mail order catalogues.

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Catalogue - Lighting. アートキューブ : 東京電気株式会社 [Atokyubu : Tokyo Denki Kabushikigaisha]. Tokyo Electric Co. [193-?]. 23x15cm publisher's colour illustrated wrapper; [2],8p, eight full page illustrations. Staples detached, small nibble at the top of the spine and some ink notes on the back cover; still pretty good. Au$225

Atokyubu are what they sound like if you say it right: art cubes. Cubes of light and here are some ways they can be used: as signs, display, and chic lighting. I'm not sure they took off, I can't find anything else about them.
The sign on the front cover is for Mazda, the light department of Tokyo Electric. In 1939 a merger created Tokyo Shibaura - better known now as Toshiba. But it's not that simple, you need a genealogist to properly unravel the company history.

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PAIN, Barry. Playthings and Parodies. London, Cassell 1892. Octavo publisher's blindstamped green cloth. A quite good copy. Au$60

First edition. Not unamusing, some parodies including Kipling, Ruskin and Tolstoi and a number of short pieces.

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Tokyo. 東京名所万世橋広瀬中佐銅像 [Tokyo Meisho Manseibashi Hirose Chuza Dozo?]. Tokyo 1914 (Taisho 3). Colour lithograph 27x40cm. A blotch in the top margin, a bit rumpled and used; pretty good. Au$100

The statue of Hirose Takeo - Russo-Japanese War hero - was erected in 1910 and in 1914 the monumental pile of Manseibashi station - opened in 1912 - should be right behind him. It would spoil the composition of this view so it has understandably been omitted.
Once the eyes stop watering these acid trip views of late Meiji and Taisho Japan start to make sense. They may have started as a cynical grab at attention for cheap, often nasty, prints but after a while they become a celebration of being in a place and time so exciting that no portrait can be too brightly, too impossibly, coloured.
Photographs may be in some way a more reliable record but no photographer could gather the cast of characters - and the characters include trams and motor cars and the latest fashions - and arrange them to so capture the thrill of being out and about in Tokyo on a Taisho afternoon.

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Paper. 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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Trams (streetcars). お伽絵本 : 電車づくし [Otogi Ehon : Densha-Dzukushi]. Tokyo, Seibido? 1914 (Taisho 3). 12x17cm publisher's woodblock colour illustrated wrapper; four double folded leaves with eight colour woodblock prints. An outstanding copy. Au$200

The quality of printing in this celebration of the tram goes down hill once we're past the front cover but the cover is worth it, what with the silver printing and sprinkles. And there is a too rarely seen view of a boy being knocked off his bike.
This is maybe not properly a modern akahon (red book), the ultra cheap and lurid kids books that came out of Osaka but it is a blood relation.

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RASHDALL, Hastings. The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages. A new edition in three volumes edited by F.M. Powicke and A.B. Emden. Oxford Univ Press 1958 [1936]. Three volumes octavo, very good in publisher's cloth and browned dustwrappers; two plates and a map. Au$150

A reprint of the revised edition (1936), and still the standard work.

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Insurance sugoroku. 生命保険双六 [Seimei Hoken Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Nikka Life Insurance 1926 (Taisho 15). Colour broadside 54x79cm. Minor signs of use and a little browning, quite good. Au$200

The thrills of life insurance captured in this rollicking game. This should not be confused with the game with the same title issued by the Aikoku Life Insurance company the following year. No doubt that has its charms, but ...

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Kon Wajiro, Yoshida Kenkichi & Modernology. 柳屋 - 第42 [Yanagiya - dai 42]. Osaka, Yanagiya March 1931. 23x15cm publisher's illustrated wrapper; 60pp, a few small illustrations. Signs of use but decent. Au$50

This is an issue of the obscure and clearly serious Osaka magazine Yanagiya devoted to some extent to the first volume of Modernology, published in 1930.
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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Police. Murakami Yoshitomo. 現行法規 : 巡査心得 [Genko Hoki : Junsa Kokoroe]. Osaka, Bunkeido 1883 (Meiji 16). 15x11cm publisher's cloth; 286pp, line illustrations of uniforms and equipment. A tear in one leaf; a rather good copy. Au$200

A charming little book in its quiet way, this is a complete guide to everything a police officer needs to know. Worldcat finds only the NDL entry.

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Iehara Masanori & Shiozu Kanichiro. 学校必用 - 色図問答 [Gakko Hitsuyo - Irozu Mondo]. Kyoto?, Shiga Shinbun 1877 (Meiji 10). 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. A used copy with name on the cover. Pretty good for an old school book. sold

Second printing maybe. 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.

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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). A bit of browning and usual offsetting of the card; quite good. 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$500

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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Catalogue - Pharmaceuticals. Weeks & Potter, Boston. Revised Catalogue of Foreign and Domestic Drugs, selected powders, fine essential oils, waters and extracts ... wines and liquors, proprietry medicines, druggists shop furniture ... sundries and surgical appliances, sponges, fancy goods, and toilet articles. Boston 1890. Octavo publisher's limp cloth, the front titled in black (spine browned and a bit rubbed); 468,130pp, profusely illustrated with wood engravings and a handsome full page colour lithograph of a bottle of their Beef, Iron and Wine. Used but solid and very decent. The second section consists of advertisements. Au$300

The advertisements include a warning by Dr S.A. Richmond of Tuscola, Illinois, against fraudulent companies selling bogus versions of his justly celebrated Samaritan Nervine. He prints the text of a judgment against such a company and invites the many thousands of those he has saved from epilepsy, insanity and death to join him "lashing these ignorant, impotent, piratical scoundrels through the earth with a whip of scorpions."

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HADDON, A.C. & James HORNELL. Canoes of Oceania. Honolulu, Bishop Museum 1936-37-38. Three volumes large octavo publisher's printed wrappers; numerous photo illustrations and line drawings throughout. An excellent set. Au$1750

Hard to find complete in such good shape, this is the definitive work. I: The Canoes of Polynesia, Fiji, and Micronesia by Hornell; II: The canoes of Melanesia, Queensland by Haddon; III: Definition of Terms, General Survey, and Conclusions by both.

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Japanese handmade postcards. An album of 84 handmade postcards from the 1930s. n.p. Concertina card album 18x23cm with pattern paper covers and card slipcase with handwritten label. 84 cards mounted in corner slots on double card leaves - ie it can be opened both ways. Some browning. A couple of other things are also in there but aren't counted. sold

I usually avoid postcards: that way lies madness and, if you aren't careful, cigarette cards and stamps. But these, using block prints, brush work and lots of collage, are something else. There's a sense of immediate history that doesn't come with manufactured cards; and a clever eye.
These were made by someone and sent to somebody but apart from recognising that the maker had an enviable fine hand I can't tell you who and whom. There's a story here that someone literate might unravel. The dates and postmarks range from about 1931 to 1938.

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RICHARDSON, Benjamin Ward. Hygeia a City of Health. London, Macmillan 1876. Octavo publisher's printed tangerine wrapper (rubbed, worn along the spine); 48pp. A bit used; pretty good. sold

The sanitary reformer's outline for an utopian city of 100,000 people which he is confident that, within two generations, will reduce mortality to five per thousand. An outline it is, but a closely worked one; from the laying out of streets - with subway trains beneath - to their paving and camber. It is to be, more a less, a garden city but the detail is in the details, to coin a paraphrase.
Housing is treated particularly: nothing is to be below ground; the brickwork is to be impermeable but laid with removable wedges that allows cavity air to be flushed or heated; the interior walls and arched ceilings are to be of glazed brickwork (of colours and patterns to the inhabitants' taste and purse) which makes unnecessary the poisons of glues, papers and distempers and allows the complete interior to be washed down with water. Each room is worked out by purpose, placement and design; communication and ventilation provided.
Outside, factories, sanitation works, abbatoirs and suchlike are removed some distance from the city and trades (tailoring, shoe-making, lacework) are taken out of the homes to convenient blocks of offices and workrooms. Small, almost portable, model hospitals are provided every few blocks and the insane, infirm and incapacitated are cared for in houses indistinguishable from the rest. Given the debate on cremation vs burial, Richardson plumps for tradition but not current practice. The dead are to be interred in shrouds only, into artificial carboniferous soil where they can return to dust in no time at all. Monuments can be erected in some hall or temple.

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Nukina Shun'ichi. 千萬無量 : 星世界旅行 - 第一編 [Senman Muryo : Hoshi Sekai Ryoko - Dai-ichi-hen]. Kyoto, Nukina Shun'ichi 1882 (Meiji 15). 18x13cm publisher's cloth backed thin printed boards; [6],144,[3]pp, one full page and five half page illustrations. A couple of pin holes in the back cover, title a touch browned; an astonishingly good copy of a most vulnerable book. Au$3800

First edition of the first Japanese science fiction novel. This is proper interplanetary - intergalactic even - space travel, not old fashioned fantasy or fable. The title translates literally as 'Star World Travel'. For a while this was apparently regarded as a Jules Verne translation until someone figured out that there is no Jules Verne novel like this to translate.
Maybe there is undoubted Verne influence but since this has never been translated and there is virtually nothing written in English and not much in Japanese on Nukina and his novel I can't help much. What does emerge from the few brief notices I have found is that on one planet the work is done by artificially created organic creatures - androids or robots - that are governed by three rules. It would be hard to argue that either Capek or Asimov pinched their ideas from Nukina but once again we find that no great notion doesn't have a precursor.
This is volume one - containing five chapters - there is no volume two. At the end is a teasing hint of what chapters six to twelve might contain but we are unlikely to ever know for sure.

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Kurata Hakuyo. 飛行自動車雙六 [Hiko Jidosha Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Bukyo Sekai Sha 1913 (Taisho 2). Colour broadside 55x78cm. Used, with some small holes in folds and a repaired tear; quite acceptable. Au$400

This rare and captivating game was the new year gift from the magazine Bukyo Sekai. We follow two kids around the world in their flying car. Like all well prepared kids they packed their revolvers, handy when a lion attacks from one side and tigers from the other; likewise unfriendly black folk and what I take to be a roc.

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HANDS, Joseph. Beauty, and the Laws Governing its Development; with suggestions on education, relative to the attainment of beauty. London, E.W. Allen [1882?] with overlaid ticket of the Chicago National Institute of Science. Slender octavo, publisher's decorated red cloth blocked in black and gilt; 88pp. A couple of minor flaws to the cloth, rather good. Au$300

Only edition and elusive; just like describing Hands' writings in a simple and clear way. Hands was a London physician cum homeopath, apparently still respectable - viz his membership of the Royal College of Surgeons presuming his claim is true - and wrote works best, or most easily, described as thoroughly Victorian lunatic fringe: on will-ability and mind-energy, on the laws of matter and motion, and here, on aesthetics.
Hands begins with seven aphorisms, one of which was Hogarth's, all sensible enough; the last is quite noble. But from there he leaps from the ideal human form (5'10" tall for man; 5'6'' for woman) to electro-polar action to colour to the lapse of time like an ibex in the high alps and following him leaves us breathless and bewildered.

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穀相場早見 [Koku Soba Hayami?]. n.p. n.d. [mid 19th century?]. Woodcut 17x23 cm printed in black with volvelle printed in blue attached by a paper twist. Nibble from the bottom edge, pretty damn good. Au$150

A cute if vulnerable ready reckoner for the poorest classes dealing with grain that has somehow survived intact. I guess that you choose a quantity from the outer edge - with numbers from 50 to100 - and the two inner cutouts show you the answers - whatever that is. I have found a couple of uninformative references which only tell us that it is late Edo - ie before 1867.

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[Rembrandt]. MUNZ, Ludwig. Rembrandt's Etchings. Reproductions of the Whole Original Etched Work. A Critical Catalogue of Rembrandt's Etchings and the etchings of his school formerly attributed to the master with an essay on Rembrandt's technique and documentary sources London, Phaidon 1952. Two volumes quarto, very good in publisher's gilt cloth and dustwrappers; hundreds of illustrations. sold

Catalogue raisonne. A many titled book. The first title above is from the first volume; that of the second is "A Critical Catalogue ...". Two further variations are given on the outside and inside of the dustwrappers.

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Catalogue - bicycles. Nishiura Shoten. 西浦商報 [Nishiura Shoho]. Tokyo, Nishiura 1930 (Showa 5). 23x15cm publisher's printed wrapper; 48pp, illustrated throughout. Some signs of use, pretty good. Au$150

From a carrier motor tricycle to a kid's tricycle with everything in between.

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Vietnam: anti war and underground American press in Japan. A collection of newspapers and leaflets produced by or for the American military in Japan during the Vietnam war. vp (Okinawa, Iwakuni, Yokosuka, Tokyo &c) vd c1969-74, mostly 1970-72. 71 items in two old folders (plus a few duplicates) of various sizes on various papers ranging from the clumsiest mimeograph leaf to reasonably well printed offset - most down the lower end of the production scale - many illustrated with varied success by photo or drawing. The condition ranges from shabby but complete to fresh off the press - mostly up the top end of the condition scale. Au$3500

A splendid collection made by someone who must have been involved in the production of some of these ephemeral outcries. I suspect a member of the Beheiren - the loose organisation of Japanese opponents to the Vietnam war: on one Beheiren piece the address and phone numbers have been updated by hand; with another, three fresh copies on different colour paper have been preserved. There are annotations here and there in English and a few in Japanese.
There may be a more complete collection of these things somewhere in the world but I haven't found it. I thought the Wisconsin Historical Society GI Press collection was such a place until I discovered that it is a digital collection scanned from pieces all over the world by the dedicated academic James Lewes. He didn't find quite a few things that are here.
Titles include Semper Fi; We Got the brASS; Yokosuka David; GI Free Press Okinawa; Fall In at Ease; Demand for Freedom; GI Newsletter; the 1st Amendment; Omega Press; Freedom of the Press.
Most of these say adamantly that the authorities were not allowed to confiscate them; I wonder how that worked in practice.

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ALLEN, Grant. What's Bred in the Bone. £1000 Prize Novel. London, Tit-Bits 1891. Octavo publisher's decorated cloth blocked in gilt, ochre, red and black. Spine a touch darkened, minor signs of use; pretty good. Au$400

First edition of this maelstrom of a thriller. "What's Bred in the Bone is what you can recommend to a friend .. who .. likes his novels hot and strong," said Longman's Magazine and the reviewer in The Speaker, pausing for breath at the end of a racing list of incidents, tells us that "this is only the second chapter and Mr Grant Allen has enough incident to last him for forty-five chapters."
Murder, disaster, fraud, identical twins of unknown predigree who share the same toothaches, the diamond fields of South Africa and young English lady with an atavistic urge for snake dancing ... many of these things, but not all, are down to the influence of heredity. The rest are down to the author.
This novel was a hit so it's easy enough to find delapidated copies and reprints but not decent original copies.

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まんがすごろく [Manga Sugoroku]. Asahi Graph 1925 (Taisho 14). Colour broadsheet 54x79cm. Minor signs of use, pretty good. On the back is a monochrome game that features Daikokuten and a map of Japan; it doesn't look very interesting. With the playing pieces in the margin. sold

The new year gift from the magazine Asahi Graph celebrates the introduction and embrace of the American comic strip in Japan along with a couple of local heroes. Mutt, Jeff, Jinks, Maggie et al share the page with that pom-pom kid and his squirrel friend - or vice versa - I forget their names. But I do notice that everyone sticks to their own boxes; Jinks, Mutt and the squirrel play the same stage but not together. Such behavior came later.
It was Okamoto Ippei that convinced Asahi Graph and associated papers to publish Bringing Up Father and Mutt and Jeff. This is printed on good heavy paper and Asahi must have produced a squillion of them, so you'd expect it to be fairly easy to find. Not so.

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Ikematsu Hitoshi. Original illustration of a rocket-like space ship. n.p. 1975. Guoache and ink? on bristol board; 33x52cm with protective overlay sheet and mounted proof of the reduced published illustration in black and white. Signed, dated with an identification number by Ikematsu. Au$450

An exquisite cutaway rendering of a large scale space ship that seems to powered by some fuel or force - maybe gathered in space through the nose? Human astronauts occupy four floors toward the tail.
Ikematsu was a busy sci-fi and technical wizzbang artist and this was obviously for a magazine. It's a pity if the customers only got to see it at half scale in black and white.

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Catalogue - printed photograph mounts. Asanuma Shokai. 写真台紙定価表 [Shashin Daishi Teika-hyo]. n.p. Asanuma Shokai 1903 (Meiji 36). 18x23cm publisher's decorated wrapper; [8]pp and 12 pages of illustrated examples in various monochromes. A nice copy. Au$500

A mountain of printed and most decorative mounts for studio photographs were produced but this is the first catalogue of them I've seen. Most of these appear to be actual examples produced for photographers in Japan, Hong Kong, China and maybe Manchuria - judging by the Russian type. As an example of maybe a dim corner of photographic history - I don't know enough to judge - this is pretty good, but as an example of a dark corner of graphic design and commercial printing this is fabulous.
The last plate is an array of decorative borders.

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Simon, Jaakow. Lastträger Bin Ich. Berlin, Kedem 1936. Octavo publisher's cloth backed colour illustrated boards; 92pp, b/w illustrations. Some spotting or browning but pretty good. Bookseller's label of Berlin publishers and sellers Poppelauer. Some of Poppelauer's heirs managed to escape in 1938 while others died in the camps. And with a discrete stamp on the back of the title showing it was part of the keen Zionist Rabbi Falk's collection that went to Sydney's Great Synagogue - now dispersed. Au$200

A collection of children's stories about the new Palestine for up and coming young German Zionists. As an illiterate I'm baffled by the ragged young porter inspiring any child to move to Palestine but ... what do I know? Maybe it looked pretty good to a Jewish kid in Berlin in 1936. Maybe the message is that Arab kids were there to do the hard work.
Simon may be better known as Ja'akow Shimoni, a bigwig in Israeli foreign affairs in the early years of the state but is nowhere near as well known as Ya'akow Shimoni, the strident Zionist rapper.

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Hikifuda. Nakayama. Club Washing Powder ... highly perfumed by violet essence, white rose, musk and Jockey Club Essence ... n.p. [Kobe?], Nakayama Taiyodo [1906?]. Broadside 35x34cm printed rainbow in red, green and purple on crepe (chirimen). Old folds, a couple of small holes in a fold, pretty good. Au$150

What the hell is Jockey Club Essence? Never mind. Fin-de-siecle belles printed in rainbow on crepe; what more could you ask for? Nakayama founded his cosmetics company in Kobe in 1903, changed the name to Club in 1905 and launched Club Washing Powder in 1906. It became Club Cream in 1911. This hikifuda matches the Nakayama advertising of 1906 on the company's website. The trademark twins are apparently a portrait of Namiko, wife of Maeda Toshinari.
By 1939 Nakayama was a member of the house of peers or lords and is now the hero of a recent novel; the title translates as "King of Cosmetics". Look out for the Takarazuka Revue musical and the mini-series.

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Hikifuda. Chairs. Yoshida Yakichi. 椅子製造人 [Isu Seizojin]. Morioka (Iwate) 1891 (Meiji 24). Letterpress broadside 24x33cm; five chairs and a stool illustrated. Top corners repaired - I suspect it was in an album, mildly stained; pretty good. Au$375

Advertising handbill for Yoshida Yakichi, a furniture, or at least chair, maker in Morioka - in northern Honshu.
Maruya opened probably the first western furniture shop in Japan in the Ginza in 1872, probably selling imports to begin with. How quickly western furniture making for a Japanese market followed I don't know. The wealthy who wanted at least one western room to show off their modernity would likewise want to show off fine imported pieces. I'm sure there is a learned paper somewhere on western furniture making in c19th provincial Japan. If there isn't, here's a good place to start.

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IRVINE R.F. Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Question of the Housing of Workmen in Europe and America. Sydney, Govt printer 1913. Foolscap folio printed boards with cloth spine (spine titled by hand); [10],132pp, photo and other illustrations, plans (five folding). Small stamp on cover and title, a couple of minor flaws; still an excellent, fresh copy. sold

One of the essential planning documents from the first period - the golden age - of modern town planning. And rare. A quick glance at Worldcat suggests that this is well represented in libraries around the world, until you weed out the electronic version.
The slums of Sydney: descriptions, observations and alternatives: municipal and association housing, tenements, the garden city, and the necessity for town planning. The details and examples are extensive, his recommendations clear and concise.
Professor Irvine's report on Dacey Garden Suburb quietly mentions that the scheme actually originated with Dacey's predecessor Carmichael.

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Aviation paper game. Paris - Madagascar [Les Deux Raids Magnifique de l'Avion "Alsa" on the back]. n.p. Alsa [c1931]. Colour lithograph 36x27cm. text on the back in red and blue. Old folds, pretty good. Au$150

Two heroic record breaking flights - Paris-Tokyo and back and Paris-Madagascar and back, both in 1931 - were made to honour Alsa biscuits, cakes and baking powder.

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TREVENA, John [Ernest George Henham]. The Reign of the Saints. London, Alston Rivers 1911. Octavo publisher's red cloth. A few spots on page edges, an outstanding, fresh and bright copy. sold

First (only?) edition of this account of the dystopian future which, let me tell you, takes a shot gun to just about everything you might hold dear. Races other than white, women, democracy, all are threats. In two or three hundred years, "Asiatics" and "niggers" have overrun the western world and it was largely the fault of women. What parts of Britain and its former colonies that are not owned by the Japanese are ruled by women. This I learnt in the first few pages. At this point I wondered if this is a parody.

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Hikifuda. Biscuits. Fugetsudo. 乾蒸餅製造之要趣 [Inui Mushimochi Seizo no Yo Omomuki?]. Tokyo, Fugetsudo [189-?]. Lithograph broadside 27x39cm; with red and dull gold overprinting. Old folds, rather good. Au$150

A dignified advertisement for Fugetsudo's western style biscuits delivered with the authority of what seems to be a barrage of gold medals and a view of their modern factory at work. The only date I can find is the first year of Meiji (1867) which is obviously historical. Today there are a few Fugetsudos, none of which seem to acknowledge the others but still trace their roots to the 18th century and their modern history from the great expansion and modernisation in the Meiji period. All make a speciality of Gaufres or Gaufrettes.

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Shimizu Usaburo. 西洋烟火之法 [Seiyo Hanabi No Ho]. Tokyo, Mizuhoya 1881 (Meiji 14). Octavo publisher's decorated cloth; [4],112,[2]pp, small illustrations through the text. Endpapers and title browned, minor signs of use; rather good. Au$500

A scarce, properly scarce in one piece, work on western fireworks. There are almost no published manuals of Japanese fireworks before the 20th century. Risho published a small book in 1825 and that is properly rare. Such information was occult knowledge, circulated in manuscript and passed from master to apprentice
Shimizu is called translator - and he was a translator of western books - but I can't find out who and what he has translated here. The faint large red stamp on the title is a publisher's or bookseller's stamp.

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Fireworks. 花火仕様覚帳 [Hanabi Shiyo Obeocho]. n.p. 1763 (Horeki 12). Manuscript in ink 25x17cm; 18 leaves including covers. Quite savagely wormed but all but a few characters are legible. Au$90

Fireworks specifications. There are almost no published manuals of Japanese fireworks before the 20th century. Risho published a small book in 1825 and that is rare. Such information was occult knowledge, circulated in manuscript and passed from master to apprentice. I can't claim any expertise but having now seen a few 18th and 19th century fireworks manuscripts I am yet to see a second copy of any. It makes sense that every maker had their own method and styles and most every manuscript was peculiar to that.

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Exhibition - Tokyo 東京博覧会第一会場第二会場夜の美観 [Tokyo Hakurankai Dai Ichi Kaijo Dai Ni Kaijo Bayoru No Bikan]. Tokyo, Urashimado? 1928 (Showa 3). Colour lithograph 37x78cm. Creased and crumpled but still worthwhile. Au$150

This is the Dairei Memorial Expo of 1928 - held to celebrate the coronation of Hirohito - by night. This is how the world looked when I was a child. Trying to recover this vision with varied hallucinogens and psychotropics only works for so long so it's good to have a permanent souvenir.

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