Banned perversions

Soma Jiro. 変態処方箋 [Hentai Shohosen] Selection of Abnormal Documents. Tokyo, Kaichosha June 1930 (Showa 5). 19x14cm publisher's illustrated fawn cloth printed in red, yellow and black (a bit smudged), printed card slipcase. Some browning, a few minor signs of use, rather good. Au$200

First edition of this substantial classic of the ero-guro-nansensu (erotic grotesque nonsense). Hentai Shohosen might translate as A Prescription for Perverts. Drugs, sex toys, punishment, cannibalism and a list of everyday items used by foreign women for masturbation appear among the chapters. So I'm told. Thank goodness I can't read it.
According to Hakkin Hon (banned books): Bessatsu Taiyo, the book was banned four days before publication and 295 of the 1000 copies produced were seized. And I found another note on this book that tells us that 38 printings appeared within four months - with 25% of the text blanked out, with at least one all blank page.
What I really want to know is who did the cheerful cover and box/title page. Designer's names are often tucked away in the colophon or contents list but I can't find it.

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Fireworks. 花火新伝事法 [Hanabi Shin Den Jiho]. n.p. [1865] (Keio 1). Manuscript in ink, 24x15cm cloth covered boards lettered by hand; 20 double page spreads 20x24cm mounted on card and framed with grey paper. Front margin wormed spreading into the top margin but barely into the framed sheets; last few leaves chomped in the gutter. None of this is as fatal as it sounds. On the back cover is another inscription dated 1886 (Meiji 19). Au$500

A very cool pyrotechnist's working book, even with the chewing, unlike anything else I've seen. Someone put in a fair bit of work to make a working book into an album. The title can be translated as New Methods of 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. I can't claim expertise but having 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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Fireworks. 火霊之伝 {Karei no Den]. n.p. n.d. (early to mid c19th?). Manuscript 8x17cm original wrapper; 28 double page leaves (plus a few blanks) in ink with several illustrations (a couple with added red). Au$600

The title here - which might translate as Methods of the Fire Spirit - heads the preface. A pyrotechnist's working book. This one is a cut above average, it's carefully written and skilfully illustrated.

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Maeda Tamon . 西洋かるたの教師 [Seiyo Karuta no Kyoshi]. Tokyo, Kamikataya 1886 (Meiji 19). 15x10cm publisher's illustrated wrapper (some small edge tears and chips); 48pp, a few small illustrations. A bit ratty but pretty good for such a delicate little handbook. Au$300

Western card playing taught to Japanese, beginning with the proper way to split the deck and riffle the cards together. 1886 was the year the sale of western playing cards (karuta) was officially permitted. I don't know whether Japan went straight into the smoke filled saloons and gambling dens with exotic dancers promised by the cover but I'm sure it wasn't long. I have taken the liberty of naming the young woman on the cover Lola Yamada.
I learn from the Japan Playing Card Museum that the games here are "Twenty-one," "Dashijimai," "Tentori," "Napoleon," and "Another Method of Fortune Telling." All but Twenty One are trick taking games.
Worldcat finds no copies outside Japan and I can't find many inside.

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OKAMOTO, K.S. [Konseki]. Ancient and Modern Various Usages of Tokio Japan. 古今百風吾妻餘波. Tokyo, Morito 1885. 23x15cm publisher's wrapper with printed title label (wrapper somewhat grubby, label chipped and another old label on the front); 62 double folded leaves, colour woodblock illustrations throughout, one double page, three full page. Used but a most acceptable copy. Au$850

A beguiling and puzzling book. Is it a souvenir for tourists? a primer for westerners learning Japanese? a primer for Japanese learning English? It could be any or all of these. Apart from some hats, and despite the title, there are few signs of the modern world. So, obviously it's for tourists. But why is so much of the text, all the explanatory stuff, in Japanese? The sections on "Celebreted Article and Food" and "Names of Cake" are unillustrated Japanese text. And why are those hats there? So it isn't for tourists. Then why so old world? Is it for Japanese readers as a reminder of what they might lose in the rush to modernise? The opponents of westernisation - and there were plenty - didn't usually write books like these and Okamoto published an "Elementary Spelling Book" a couple of years after this. And why are those hats there? My guess is that it is an attempt to be all things to everyone but those hats still worry me.

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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. Au$850

By 1868 the Chinese population of Victoria was on the wane - estimated at less than half of 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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GUNN, Dr David. [James Reid?] The Story of Lafsu Beg, the Camel Driver. As told to ... showing how went to Australia, and what befel him there. Sydney &c, Geo. Robertson [1896]. Narrow octavo publisher's illustrated wrapper. Spine ends and corners chipped, a used but more than acceptable copy. No.2 of the Warrigal Series. Au$1250

Only edition of this rare novel which is, in it's own way, as lonely as a solo camel driver lost in the desert. A small book on Islam and camel drivers in Australia joined this in 1932 and then there is another empty expanse until modern histories and academic papers began to appear. All of these cite Lafsu Beg but I only found one that indicated that the writer had read it and no-one commented on how remarkable it's sympathetic treatment of Muslims at a time of ferocious xenophobia and racism, even by Australian standards. Don't forget that "Australia for the white man" was on The Bulletin masthead until the 1960s.
David Gunn is as elusive as Lafsu Beg. He enters the records with this book and exits with a very short tale in the Sydney Mail in 1899. Morris Miller made it clear that Gunn was as fictional as Beg - the name is in quotes - and Nesbitt and Hadfield (Australian Literary Pseudonyms) give us the name James Reid with birthdate 1836. There my trail ran cold; I won't drag you down the dead ends.
This may not be the best copy but as it's the only copy in the wild I've seen I didn't wait for one better.

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[William Harvey (or Harvie?) Christie]. A Love Story. By a Bushman. Sydney, G.W. Evans 1841. Octavo, two volumes bound together in contemporary half calf (front cover detached and most of the spine gone). An old repair to the title page, a bit foxed but pretty good; one leaf was creased while printing, not significant. The author's daughter's copy but presented not by him but her husband, Charles Kemp of Kemp and Fairfax, printers of the book. It is inscribed "Stella Kemp, 1841. C.K." Au$4000

Only edition of this Sydney fiction incunabulum. The Australasian Chronicle (August 7 1841) gave this a lot of space, mostly due to the duty to "encourage the first blossoms of Australian literaure" and pads it out with lengthy quotes. The reviewer strives for kindness but in the end we're left with the notion that he was most impressed by an elegant two volume novel (price one guinea) being produced in Sydney. The Sydney Herald of the same date is equally generous with space padded by quotes, more generous about the author's ability, given a thoughtfully judicious approach. The reviewer protests a bit much that they know nothing about the author's identity; perhaps necessary as Kemp may well have written the review.
First into print were The Australian and The Sydney Gazette (both August 5) each with a one paragraph notice of the book in which more words praise the book's production than the writing. I didn't find a review in either paper.
The Port Phillip Gazette (October 2) is way less encouraging about the author's abilities but still devotes three quarters of a page, thanks to padding, to the book. At the end we learn that what is reviewed is volume one and I realised that none of the reviews suggest that volume two was opened and that no-one remarks on the Australian episodes. Nor does any reviewer mention the existence of another Australian novel - despite the notice in the Chronicle the day before their review telling us that this was the second novel from the Australian press and both were by the same author. The dutiful Port Phillip Gazeete did return with volume two (October 2) but it's hard to tell whether anyone but the typesetter read much of the book.
A writer to The Temperance Advocate (September 15 1841) wrote rapturously about the book but he hadn't read it and was under the impression that it was the first ever Australian novel. Forgivable, since the Advocate had said so on August 11. Word, at least, of the book had reached Hobart by the end of August but I found no review. I would have guessed that Hobart patriots rushed to refute Sydney's claim to the first novel. Not so.
H.M. Green condemned this as "rubbish" in passing, so passing that it wasn't worth indexing. You can find it on p280 of his History of Australian Literature. Green was furious about the amount of space given to our Love Story by Barton in his Literature in New South Wales (1866) but that may have more to do with it being Barton's first fiction entry and that he had read it. It's not a kind review.
This is maybe the only copy I've traced that wasn't a gift to someone valuable to his career.

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TEALE, T. Pridgin, Dangers to Health: a pictorial guide to domestic sanitary defects. London, Churchill &c 1879. Octavo publisher's gilt decorated illustrated cloth (a touch mottled); 55 plates, all but a couple in black and blue, one in three colours. Minor signs of use, quite good. Au$475

First edition of this charming and terrifying pictorial guide to the perils of Victorian home life. Three more editions and French, German and Spanish translations (at least) followed over the next few years. I recommend this to anyone wanting to restore old houses with absolute authenticity. And it's essential for time travellers.
"Having further traced illness amongst my own patients to scandalous carelessness and gross dishonesty ... I became indignantly alive to the fact that very few houses are safe to live in." A still useful warning. Teale, third generation Leeds surgeon, like so many eminent Victorians, can only have achieved so much by working hundred and sixty hour weeks. There was a deluge of obituaries at his death in 1923, all eulogistic, but the note in the British Medical Journal caught my eye: he had an "almost feminine sweetness of disposition."

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Kobayashi Ikuhide. 上野公園風船の図 [Uenokoen Fūsen no Zu]. Tokyo, Sakai Kinzaburo, January1891 (Meiji 24). Colour woodcut 36x24cm. At sometime mounted on tissue with what was probably a hinge on the right edge. A nice bright copy. Au$1150

The brightest, busiest and most impossible of the Ueno Park balloon prints. Aeronaut Percival Spencer, of the Spencer aeronautic dynasty, came to Japan in 1890 with his balloons and parachutes, performing his balloon ascent and parachute descent stunts in Yokohama and in Ueno Park in Tokyo in November 1890. He is said to have injured himself slightly having to avoid the royal tent during a command performance. Tokyo went balloon mad - again, they had a craze years earlier - and Spencer's performance was made into a Kabuki dance play - Fusen Nori Uwasa Takadono (Riding the Famous Hot-Air Balloon, see Brandon; Kabuki Plays on Stage) by premier dramatist Kawatake Mokuami - which ran for a month in early 1891. The Kabuki star Kikugoro V (who played the demon princess in the 1899 film Momijigari) played Spencer with waxed moustache, hat and learnt a short speech in English for the finale.
I think all the other balloon prints of Spencer in action are actually Kikugoro in action and this fantasia is also a theatre print: those are actors' names on the balloons. We might think of this as an advertisement for the play that had begun, or was about to begin, its run. But front and centre is the name of Ichikawa Danjuro, who shared the top rung of the star ladder - but not this play - with Kikugoro and I can't see Kikugoro's name anywhere.

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墓標と記念碑 [Bohyo to Kinenhi]. Tokyo, Koyosha 1923 (Taisho 12). 19x13cm, loose as issued in publisher's printed boards; 50 plates printed on one side. An excellent copy. Au$100

One of 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 is pretty good.
Gravestones and memorials, a good mix of old school kitsch and moderne, a few to the edge of extreme. They can be examples of pure design, being free and limitless, as the foreword says, and here are offered as a lesson to Japanese to reform their gloomy and sad approach to marking their dead in the landscape.

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Housing. 文化住宅 [Bunka Jutaku]. Tokyo, Koyosha 1924 (Taisho 13). Two volumes 19x13cm, loose as issued in publisher's printed boards; 100 plates printed on one side: photos and plans. An excellent pair. Au$250

Cultural housing. Recent examples of houses drawn from the bunkamura (cultural village) movement - the purposeful introduction of idealistic westernised homes, rather than mansions and commercial buildings. 1922 saw a model bunkamura built for the Peace Exposition and the start of the Meiji Bunkamura, a Tokyo estate development for the well heeled bourgeoisie. I think the preface says that these were all built in the last year or two, in which case what is noticeable is the wealthier the client, the more established the garden; the better the house fits into the landscape.
Some of the houses here crowd the definition of mansion, a contrast to rows of semi-detached cottages in Osaka which, I'm sorry to say, look almost like a 20th century suburb anywhere in the world. The publisher, Koyosha, had a significant role in the housing reform underway: modern houses were no longer mansions. Admittedly, they were not for the working poor but I guess it was a start. Anyway, the poor can only afford architecture when the government is paying.

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COINTERAUX, Francois. Avis au Peuple sur l'Economie de Son Bois. Pais, Cointeraux 1806. Octavo, uncut in ragged original orange wrapper (most of the back wrapper gone); 40pp and two folding plates. Rather good. Au$400

First edition, there was a second the same year. The exception to the law I pronounced at the end of the last item. Cointeraux is, of course, the starting point for modern building in pise but as the self designated "only architect of the popular classes," he had ideas on everything. Here is an improved chimney design to make better use of heat, reduce the amount of wood needed, and be odourless and smokeless. He worried at this a few times over the following years.

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Wada Sanzo. 色名総鑑 [Shikimei Sokan]. Tokyo, Shunjusha 1931 (Showa 6). 20x12cm publisher's cloth case (back a little faded) with title label with 160 mounted colour samples on 56 accordian folding card leaves; and wrappered book; 178pp and some tables (two folding). Usual browning and offsetting of the card mounts. 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$450

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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尚古鎧色一覽 [Shoko Gaishoku Ichiran]. Tokyo, Yoshikawa Hanshichi 1901. Two volumes small quarto publisher's decorated wrappers with printed labels (the first volume a bit dusty, mildly used); 21 and 18 double folded leaves with dozens of colour woodblock designs. Au$375

A catalogue of the colours of old armour. Part of the remarkable Kojitsu Sosho series [Library of Ancient Customs] published in who knows how many volumes over many years.
These, to us, perhaps puzzling forms come in a panoply of patterns and colours that provide - even if the catalogue of clans and families they represent is now unfathomable - an enviable grammar of colour and pattern.

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CORNELL, Sophia S. 地学初歩 Cornell's Primary Geography for the Use of Schools. First Edition. [Chigaku Shoho]. Yedo. [Edo (ie Tokyo), Watanabe [1866?]. 18x12cm publisher's wrapper with printed label; [72]pp on double folded leaves and seven folding colour maps, two colour maps and some illustrations in the text. Au$500

I wonder what, if anything, a Japanese student made of Miss Cornell. After her nonsense about Japan, how could anything else she said be taken seriously? Miss Cornell's Primary Geography - one of a string of geographies she prepared for all stages of schooling - first appeared in New York in 1855. Here we are introduced to the concept and working parts of a map, then run through a brief introduction to the regions of the world.
There seems to be two printings of this "First Edition"; one dated "the 2nd year of Kei-ou" (1866) on the title and apparently without a colophon; the other (our copy) not dated, with a colophon. In this undated copy the text is within borders, the other not. Waseda University also has a third, quite different printing but their copy is severely defective and has no title page or colophon. A Japanese translation was made in 1867. Worldcat finds only one copy of this outside Japan.

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Fire sugoroku. 火防宣伝壽語録 [Hifuse Senden Kotobuki Goroku]. Nagano Prefecture, Hofukujimachi Shobo-gumi 1926 (Taisho 15). Colour broadside 80x55cm. A rather good copy with its original illustrated envelope. Au$650

A thrilling, vivid and rare game, bristling with peril and disaster, issued by the Hofukujimachi fire fighting department. I haven't found a record of another copy anywhere except here.

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医学カード : 性のデザイン篇 Medical Card for Sexual Design [Igaku Kado : Sei no Dezain hen]. Tokyo, Sansheisha Shobo 1965. 19x13cm, glossy card wallet case with 64 glossy cards. Fifty two cards printed both sides with photo illustrations of a young woman in black bodysuit on the front, one with sketches of hairstyles and the rest with diagrams and tables of reproductive organs and menstruation cycles; text and/or illustrations on the back of all. The last card is a diy rhythm calculator. All in excellent shape. Au$150

Even after deciphering the rules I'm still be baffled by this triumph of sixties sexual revolution kitsch. The first sixteen cards are blue, the rest pink; the 52 playing cards have a king's or queen's crown and one or two suit symbols - clubs, hearts &c - most have two but one has an A. The rules tell us there is only one ace but not what it's good for. Is the odd card out, the hairstyles, the joker? So the loser at Old Maid would, instead of having sex, get a new hairstyle? The gender symbols are graphic hints and must have been fun for the designer; the text on both sides is poetry; and hygiene is important. The point of the game and the rhythm calculator seems to be to give women some control in the new era of liberation; not something often evident, east or west.

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DELANNOY, Burford. (ie Adolphus Eugene Judge). "£19,000". NY, Fenno 1900. Octavo publisher's cloth (rubbed, the white lettering on the spine mostly). Read more than once I'd guess, some blotches and smudges; a decent enough second hand copy. Au$150

Likely the first edition, dated the year before the London edition. You decide on how much the choice of that amount £19,000 was designed for the bookshops of 1900.
I didn't blink when the crooked lawyer cut the crooked surgeon's throat, mistaking him in the dark for the heir to that £19,000, not knowing that the heir was packed in parts in the two suitcases in the transatlantic steamer cabin. Nor when it's revealed that of course the heir was a fraud, the true heir's crooked assistant. I did blink once or twice when the unknowing, happy go lucky hero of this story debarked from the same ship carrying those two gruesome corpses and headed straight to the true heir's farm. But I was stopped dead when we're told that heir, an illiterate western farmer, lives fifty miles from New York City. I went back to make sure I hadn't misread that.
From here it gets complicated and the coincidences get a bit unlikely. Still, I found it hard to believe that the second time the hero is caught in a murderous trap he seems to have forgotten his first experience a week or two earlier. Odd what we readers will and won't swallow. After our hero has been saved, in unalike ways, twice by rats, I wish Delannoy had continued the exercise and worked on how many ways a helpless captive can be saved by rats.
But the most unlikely thing about this book is a website I found with a thoughtful precis/review that describes a "poignant memoir." Followed by a notable Sydney bookshop that describes this as a "compelling study for the ones fascinated by the intersections of finance, ambition, and the human situation" (sic) written by "a celebrated writer famend for his masterpiece ""The History of Landholding in England,"" is a luminary within the world of historic evaluation and literature." (also sic).

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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. Octavo later cloth with cropped original front wrapper mounted; [8],283pp; numerous photo illustrations, other illustrations and plans, some folding, two folding colour plans. Signs of use but nothing terminal, a decent copy.
1915 owner's inscription of Fred W. Robinson, Duntroon. Professor Robinson published a small history of Canberra in 1924. Au$450

I knew that this existed with two different covers: the usual government report type boards echoing the title page, and a plainer more trade style wrapper. But I didn't know that it existed in two different forms: the report I've seen is a typical foolscap size; this is completely reset and reorganised, presumably for trade sales. Mounted inside the back cover is the remains of what seems to be a back wrapper advertising Dymock's Book Arcade.
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. And Professor Irvine's report on Dacey Garden Suburb mentions that the scheme actually originated with Dacey's predecessor Carmichael.

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現代住宅 1933-40. [Gendai Jutaku 1933-40]. Tokyo, Kokusai Kenchiku Kyōkai 1941. Four volumes quarto publisher's cloth, dustwrappers and card slipcases (dustwrappers with some chips and tears. The back of the fourth volume has a large piece gone, the spine is repaired and the cloth underneath has been stained); profusely illustrated throughout with photos, plans and elevations. Some signs of use; a pretty good set. The title page to volume one was bound in upside down. Au$1650

First editions. Second editions appeared soon after, a testament to something that international modernism could still be celebrated so lavishly as war started in earnest. An encyclopedic survey of modernist housing over eight years that can stand proud enough alongside anything coming out of Switzerland, Germany or Italy. I'd say it's no accident the jackets and boxes are lettered to resemble film.
Housing has been generously defined to include apartments and hotels. These buildings are well documented inside and out, garden to furnishings. Captions in English identify the house and architect. Architects include Taniguchi Yoshiro, Tsuchiura Kameki, Sugawara Eizo, Sato Takeo, Horiguchi Sutemi, Maekawa Kunio, and emigres and visitors like Bruno Taut and Antonin Raymond. A large section of each volume is also give over to exploring the rest of the world, from Shanghai to Los Angeles via Czechoslovakia.

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SHERARD, R.H. [Robert Harborough]. Agatha's Quest. London, Trischler 1890. Octavo publisher's colour illustrated wrapper (frayed, spine chipped). Fairly used, with some dog ears and browning at the beginning but all solid and respectable enough for a cheap thriller. Au$300

Doubtless the first edition despite being called the "fifteenth thousand". This was the usual way Trischler puffed new books without downright lying. The number was their print run based on pre-orders. Trischler was a short-lived firm. They began as the Hansom Cab Publishing Company with Hume's masterpiece, morphed into Trischler and were dead by 1892.
A sensational mystery thriller starring a woman jornalist; something that impressed Jules Verne so much that he contributed a prefatory letter about this new subject for fiction, assuring Sherard of success. This in turn impressed George Locke so much that he was eager to add this unknown B item to Verne's bibliography (Spectrum v3).
Agatha's Quest annoyed the Saturday Review critic, the only review I've found: "It is highly improbable that so transcendent a genius as Agatha would have married the comsumptive cur who turned out to be a murderer; nor would she as a newspaper-woman have given up her "assignment" in America for the weak reasons allotted. The author has decidedly primitive ideas about people who let lodgings; ... also it may be usual for aggressive strangers who wear disguises, and who shriek horribly upon awaking, to address their landladies by their Christian names ..."

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Perry and the black ships. 新はん 大津絵節 [Shinhan Otsue-bushi]. Tokyo? [185-?]. 18x12cm publisher's colour woodcut cover and contents list inside, woodcut illustrations throughout; 14 leaves including cover and final blank. A well used copy carefully repaired with recent stitching and the last bank leaf laid down; not bad for a flimsy popular song book. Au$175

Otsue-bushi are popular songs that were everywhere from the 17th until the late 19th century. Once past that simple explanation I was as lost in definitions of order, genera, species, as I am faced with a page of Wittgenstein. I leave the rest to you.
The point to this copy is, for me, the first song: a gentleman being entertained or exasperated by the antics of an American dressed in a uniform provided by the imagination of, and fuzzy descriptions given to, the first artists of kawaraban (news sheets) illustrating the American crew of Perry's blackships. This anchors us to 1854 when the Americans came ashore and mixed with the locals.
By law all these song books are rare; I found no mention of this one anywhere.

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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$125

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

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BINET, Rene. Esquisses Decoratives. Paris, Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts [c1905]. Folio, loose as issued in four fascicules in illustrated wrappers, all in publisher's portfolio of cloth backed illustrated boards; [2],14pp and 60 plates, 13 pochoir and a few others with a second colour added, b/w illustrations through the text. A rather good copy. Au$1600

Binet, like many architects and designers, followed Haeckel into the microscopic world for grotesque and fantastic inspiration but married such modernity with historicism in a singular way. Durant (in 'Ornament') calls Binet 'in many respects the typical French Art Nouveau designer' which, apart from being too dismissive, is just not right.
Many of his designs, particularly the coloured graphics, are ultra modern high art nouveau but much of his work has an oddly arcane, recherche effect - in which something as modern as an electric light switch modelled on the forms of diatomes or radiolaria and treated with Beaux Arts tradition becomes a mysterious if not menacing almost gothic artifact. Without claiming anything of the same stature, or even similar results, for Binet he could probably be more usefully likened to Gaudi.
This is an exposition of ideas for every school of design that Binet could encompass - from architectural detail to pochoir graphics; shop fronts to tapestry; stained glass to gardens; jewellery to mosaics.

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Kumadori. 市川家秘伝隈取図巻 [Ichikawake Hiden Kumadori zukan - ie Drawings of Kumadori Secrets of the Ichikawa Family]. Tokyo, Ishikawa Shoten 1918 (Taisho 7). Oblong quarto (190x260mm) pattern cloth with ribbon ties (the covers a little marked and used) in a later chitsu case; four leaves of text and 39 colour plates (woodcut and possibly stencil coloured, two with gold) with calligraphic captions. Au$650

Kumadori is the painted face of Kabuki and this is a series of exquisitely coloured and dramatically stylised faces of characters, full face and in profile. Ichikawa Danjuro I was said to be the originator of Kumadori in the 17th century and an unbroken succession to Ichikawa Danjuro IX (who died in 1903) kept alive and added to the characters.

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Sada Kaiseki. 冨国歩ミ初メ [Fukoku Ayumi Hajime]. Tokyo, Sada 1880 (Meiji 13). Woodcut broadside 36x52cm, stencil coloured? Some small holes and separation along folds; pretty good, the colour bright. Au$950

This captivating woodcut which looks like an advertisement for imported treasures is instead a strident protest and attack on these gewgaws. Sada was a troublesome priest but no reactionary flat-earther, not quite. He wasn't simple. He developed complex theories of science, culture and economics and saw the opening of Japan to this slew of imports as the cause of inflation and hardship for the lower classes. This woodcut was produced to promote the boycott of foreign goods and lists specific targets. Sada spent the last years of his life organising boycott societies and died - in 1882 - on a lecture tour.
This was issued with an outer wrapper which suggests to me this was not given away, it was sold. Waseda University illustrates two copies, one in better shape but carelessly coloured compared to this. The other is fairly worm eaten. They do have a wrapper, which, according to the provenance, belongs to their better copy but it is separately catalogued without any mention of Sada. Worldcat finds the NLA copy.

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TERESHKOVA, Valentina. Speech ... at the World Congress of Women. n.p. n.d. [Moscow, June 25 1963?] Octavo printed wrapper; 8pp [last blank]. Au$250

This must be rare. The speech given by the first woman in space soon after her return - she landed on the 19th and attended the Congress in Moscow on the 25th of June. The pamphlet is a very plain production - reproduced from typescript - and was doubtless quickly produced and handed out at the Congress. The translation is no more sophisticated than the speech itself - probably most remarkable for the number of exclamation marks.

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