Japanese Earthquake Architecture and Engineering [Report of the Earthquake Disaster Prevention Investigation Committee: Survey of buildings damaged in the earthquake in Yamagata Prefecture]. Tokyo 1895. 25x18cm publisher's printed wrapper; folding map, plans, heaps of plates, some folding. Used, missing the back wrapper, some staining - but nothing fatal - and corners gone from the last two leaves. A worthwhile copy. The 7th report from the committee. Au$450

A splendid report bulging with lithographs from careful drawings - much more useful than photos - made after the Shonai earthquake of 1894.

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Japanese Earthquake Architecture and Engineering Report of the Earthquake Disaster Prevention Investigation Committee: Earthquake-resistant house investigations. Tokyo 1897. 25x18cm publisher's printed wrapper (a bit grubby, closed tear in the back cover); 24 quite large measured drawings and plans, photo plates, several folding. Used but nothing serious. The 13th report of the committee. Au$150

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Japanese Earthquake Architecture and Engineering [Report of the Earthquake Disaster Prevention Investigation Committee: earthquake resistant structures]. Tokyo 1895. 25x18cm publisher's printed wrapper; 28 folding measured drawings (some quite large), 26 smaller drawings on six plates. The 6th report of the committee. Au$150

Plans and specifications for improved structures for a townhouse, a farmhouse, and a school, after the 1894 Shonai earthquake.

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Japanese Earthquake Engineering. [Report of the Earthquake Disaster Prevention Investigation Committee: Civil engineering report on earthquake damage in India]. Tokyo 1898. 26x18cm publisher's printed wrapper (a closed tear in the back cover); 20 plans, maps or diagrams (some folding, four folding in a pocket at the end), 25 photo plates. 25th Report of the Earthquake Disaster Prevention Investigation Committee. sold

This focuses on railways, particularly bridges, after the 1897 Assam earthquake.

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Japanese Earthquake Engineering. [Report of the Earthquake Disaster Prevention Investigation Committee: Investigation of factory chimneys around Tokyo] Tokyo 1904. 26x18cm publisher's printed wrapper (a couple of chips); measured drawings on 30 plates, some other illustrations in the text. The committee's 5th report, 1895, reprinted. sold

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Eugene Sanger and Ota Saburo. ロケット航空工學 [Roketto Koku Kogaku]. Tokyo, Hakuyo Shoin 1944. 22x16cm publishers cloth and dustwrapper; diagrams throughout. Expected browning, a rather good copy. Au$150

First edition. Eugene Sanger's rocket aeronatics (Raketen-Flugtechnik; 1933) translated into Japanese at about the same time a lithoprint version - but no translation - was printed in the US. And just before the V-1 jet and V-2 rocket bombardments began.
This apparently was Sanger's university thesis, rejected as too fanciful. Rockets as weapons in Japan of course were nothing new and rockets going into space were nothing new but I can't find any serious work in Japan earlier than this.
The book opens right to left which misled someone at the bindery who properly inserted the title page the way it should be, making it upside down. I don't know whether all copies are like this, the only other title page I've seen is the third edition and it's the right way up.
Worldcat finds no copy outside Japan.
And note that the translator is not Ota Saburo the artist/illustrator, just as the author of the first Japanese publication on the atom bomb is not Takeo Takei the artist/illustrator.

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Hirayama Shu. 最新飛行機図説 [Saishin Hikoki Zusetsu]. Toado Shoba 1911 (Meiji 44). 23x16cm publisher's cloth blocked in gilt, silver and blind (a bit used, small blotch on the front), remnants of the dustwrapper; two photo plates, numerous measured drawings. Some browning and smudges, used but acceptable. Au$200

First edition of this technical introduction and survey of the latest aeroplanes which might be the first proper Japanese aviation book. I found a couple of earlier popular books for kids but nothing serious. This was revised or checked by Hino Kumazo, almost the first Japanese aviator. A test flight in December 1910 was regarded more as jumps than flight and in the official attempt a few days later fellow pilot Tokugawa Yoshitoshi got first go. They had both been sent to France to learn to fly. Hino went on to develop his own aircraft and, later, a helicopter and a wingless jet propelled aircraft. None of them took off, so to speak.
I had trouble believing that Hirayama Shu is the same Hirayama Shu so closely associated with Sun Yat-Sen; surely he was too busy fomenting revolution at exactly this time. But Sun was in America for most of the year and Hino's preface speaks of his own long association with Hirayama and mentions their discussions about China.

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Izumi Keiji [ed]. ネオ デカメロン [Neo Dekameron] Neo Decameron on the cover. Tokyo, Bunshodo 1931 (Showa 6). 18x11cm publisher's decorated cloth blocked in white, printed card slipcase; 49 plates (one colour) from various sources. A nice copy. Au$200

First edition. A pleasing example of the ero-guro-nansu (erotic-grotesque-nonsense) craze of the early showa period. This is a stylish gathering of salacious pieces that would normally appear in pulp magazines. What caught my eye is the piece which sort of translates as The Electric Artificial Maiden's Secret Room which sums up the whole notion of ero-garu-nansu. This jostles with sex murder in the Shanghai British Concession and plenty more. The illustrations are pinched from louche sources, mostly European I'd say. The moire or half-tone issues with the illustration here are in their reproduction.
Neo Decameron it may be but there are 21 stories, not ten. Worldcat finds no copy.

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Tanoe [or Tanoue or Tanouye] Yoshiya. 田上義也建築画集　 [Tanoe Yoshiya Kenchiku Gashu]. Tokyo, Kensetsusha 1931. 27x19cm publisher's printed wrapper, illustrated card slipcase (this marked and a bit worn but solid); 110pp, photo illustrations, renderings and plans. Rather good.
Inscribed and signed by Tanoe to artist, later folklorist, and dogged communist Hashiura Yasuo who gets a passing mention in the book. Au$1850

Tanoe began his career working for Wright on the Imperial Hotel - from 1919 to 1923. He then headed off to Hokkaido and is now an architectural hero of the island. The prairie style is evident in some of these early houses but no more than Japan is evident in the prairie style. I read somewhere that for one of the buildings in this book he kept his original plan rather than the compacted plan that was actually built. This was so that his sense of space was preserved.
I think the rest of this Artistes Nouveaux series - maybe seven titles in all - are all painters including three Europeans: Matisse, Vlaminck and Chagall.
Worldcat finds no copies outside Japan and it's not common in Japan.

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Nishikawa Takeshi 図集 あたらしい商店 [Zushu Atarashi Shoten] The Modern Shops Designed by Takashi Nishikawa [on the cover]. Tokyo, Shokokusha 1952 (Showa 27). 26x18cm publisher's boards and dustwrapper (a little frayed); 76pp, three colour plates, b/w illustrations and plans throughout. Au$350

First edition Nishikawa's first book, designs for pure mid-century futuristic shops. This is a young architect trying to make his mark. Most of his later books are about housing and the only largish building I can find by him is the 1966 Ryusei Kaikan, a brutalist building with strong traditional Japanese forms.
Worldcat finds no copies outside Japan and it's not common in Japan.

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Kawakami Sumio. 変なリードル [Henna Ridoru] Kawakami's Henna Reader. Tokyo, Hangaso 1934 (Showa 9). 19x13 publisher's illustrated dark green wrapper printed in white and darker green; 16pp woodcut printed. Au$400

Kawakami's work is charming, simple to the point of naive so of course it isn't. Kawakami nursed a nostalgia for a time he did not experience. I'm sure there's word for that which isn't nationalism, xenophobia or popularism. In his case it was the Meiji enlightenment and the confusion of westernisation that fascinated him, particularly primers for children. Here is his. Henna translates as strange or weird; they were all weird but Kawakami is purposeful.

*These pictures of the contents have been stolen from somewhere else; I didn't want to squash this nice fresh copy to photograph the inside. This copy is better. 

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With extra death and lies

Lightning Robber 稲妻強盗 : 坂本慶次郎 [Inazuma Goto : Sakamoto Keijiro]. Tokyo, Sanshindo 1899 (Meiji 32*). 21x14cm, publisher's colour illustrated wrapper; three double page illustrations. The wrapper and last leaf (this was not issued with a back wrapper, an advertisement leaf was joined to a stub of the cover and spine) have been repaired but I'm not sure how much. It is so near invisible. An excellent, fresh copy in a chic case by binder, writer and fastidious collector Atsuo Ikuta. Au$250

Third edition, three months after the first. The Lightning Robber - Inazuma Goto, the title of this book - was Sakamoto Keijiro, arrested in February1899 after escaping jail in 1895, a lot of robberies and three murders. This was the stuff of sensation mongering of course, plays were performed in 1897 and 1899. In 1899 four or more books called Lightning Robber appeared; that is, I found four titles but I don't know how many of them are different books.
This seems to have 24 more pages than what is likely the first edition, published by Kinshindo, and either uses the same sheets or was printed from the same plates.
*But. Those extra pages finish with his death in February 1900, months after the date on the colophon printed on the other side of the same page. Can publisher's ever be trusted?
The Lightning Robber was conflated with the previous decade's Pistol Robber and one of our four or so books shows him in bowler and overcoat firing at a policeman. Japan's first feature film, 'Pisutoru Goto Shimizu Sadakichi' (pistol robber Shimizu Sadakichi) but also called 'Inazuma Goto', appeared the same year.
Worldcat does not find this version and none of their four titles are found outside Japan.

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Russo-Japanese war. Otake Chikuha & Otake Kokkan (artists). お伽絵はなし : 征露再生桃太郎 [Otogi e wa Nash i : Seiro Saisei momotaro] : Nursery Tales "Living Again Momotaro". Tokyo, Shoshindo 1905 (Meiji 38). 19x26cm publisher's colour illustrated wrapper, thread tied. 16pp including front cover, twelve pages illustrated in colour. A well used copy with some short tears, stains (only really objectionable on the last leaf); shabby but acceptable. Au$300

This might not be the best copy in the world but it might be. I've found a couple of academic references but no actual copy anywhere. It is, by the way, the fourth edition, a few months after the first.
This tale of the new Momotaro, still born from a peach but this time found by old lady America and old man England, has what might be a handy account in English added. Might be, but the story is easier to follow if you ignore it.
The Otake brothers both became respected painters and both seem to have been fractious. Chikuha, the older brother, ruined his reputation by churning out shlock to pay for an unsuccessful political bid and Kokkan suffered for his 'insolence' - fuson'na is often repeated in accounts of his life but I haven't found a real explanation. Both brothers seem to have had tantrums when their worth wasn't recognised.

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TAUT, Bruno. アルプス建築 [Arupusu Kenchiku] Alpine Architektur. Hagen, Folkwang 1919 [ie Tokyo, 1944]. 36x26cm publisher's flexible cloth and dustwrapper; title page in Japanese and 37 leaves consisting of 29 monochrome mounted leaves (title and contents leaves, five section titles and 22 plates) and eight colour lithographs. The edges of the cloth and dustwrapper have been chomped here and there, marring what is elsewise a rather good copy. With the booklet containing the Japanese translation. Au$800

This might be the most curious Japanese book on western architecture. It's officially part of the collected works of Taut in Japanese (Tauto Zenshu) but while his other works were translated and collected into four solid sensible octavo volumes, here the original has been followed faithfully, lavishly. A translation was provided as an inserted booklet.
It has been sorted out thanks to the generous diligence of a librarian at the Art Institute of Chicago (the only library I could trace that had both versions) who, twice, compared them side by side and sent me a list of seven plates that vary in image size, that this isn't a re-issue of original sheets - once a common claim. So this is no photographic process reprint; the colour plates are proper colour lithographs that match the originals. While there's no doubt that elaborate and fine printing could be and was done in war time it still doesn't make sense. The flimsy translation booklet is what we expect from wartime printing - why not do a better job with that? The binding is war time, the printing is not.
So when were these plates produced? Were they prepared with Taut when he was in Japan - by 1936? The whole business of a collected edition of Taut in the middle of the war becomes something of a circular puzzle. Japan's ties with Germany are clear enough and the Japanese showed their appreciation of radical German modernists, or expressionists, like Taut and Mendelsohn pretty much even before Germany did, and Taut had spent years in Japan. But he was part of the exodus from Germany in 1933 and had died in Turkey in 1938. Still, a devoted band of fans did manage what seems unimaginable and got the job done.
Visionary, the term mostly used to describe this book, is often just another word for lunatic and Taut's utopian scheme for these monumental crystal structures marching across the mountain ranges of the world is captivatingly nutty. If this were to be judged on its own we would have just another eccentric, if endearing, relic of a dead end dream. But, in place in a cohesive group of theoretical writing and extensive design, both built and unbuilt, possible and impossible, this book wielded influence beyond its limited circulation in advancing the notion that, for the architect, principle, theory and social concern were as important tools as a T-square.

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Colour. 色合せカード [Iro Awase Kado] Tokyo? Katsuraya Shoten 193-? 22x16 cm decorated folding card case holding four heavy cards with 22 colour cellophane windows (six each in three cards and four in one with explanatory text). In excellent shape. Au$120

This nifty colour matching device is for home dying. From what I can figure out you use the colour windows to choose or match colours which correspond with their dyes. You can stack the cards for a multitude of shades.

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Another copy.  Cards browned, one lens cracked. With a company instruction brochure on dyeing at home. Au$75

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Ogino Masao & Tsuboi Motoyoshi 友彩 [Yusai]. Tokyo, Ogino & Tsuboi? 1943 (Showa 18). 32x24cm, loose as issued publisher's folding card case (bottom flap missing, top ragged along the fold), printed paper label over a gold label. Title page and 28 numbered leaves with 126 mounted colour designs. Title browned, a little browning of the mounting leaves. Au$1850

Beautifully printed and mysterious; what more can anyone ask of a colour book? The colour printing is crisp, saturated and vivid. Yusai translates literally as 'friend colour' - a glazing technique using colours is called yusai - but what it really means other than colours friendly to each other I don't know. Neither do I know who Ogino and Tsuboi are. Ogino's name and seal is on the title slip, both names are on the title page and the colophon slip pasted inside the back cover. Beyond this is mystery.
How and why was something like this produced in 1943? A kimono pattern book out of Kyoto or Osaka is one thing but this is a colour grammar out of Tokyo. Textile patterns are used but the designs are secondary. Two names, two Tokyo addresses, and the year are all the information we have.
I can find no mention it exists.

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From mother to mother?

MURRAY, Charles Augustus. The Prairie-Bird ... in three volumes. London, Bentley 1844. Three volumes octavo gilt decorated green morocco (spines a bit faded, edges a bit rubbed). A handsome, crisp copy with the bookplate of Augusta FitzPatrick and an 1844 gift inscription from her affectionate aunt S. Dunmore* in Brighton. Au$800

First edition of a three decker love letter. Murray was a golden boy whose talent and promise maybe outweighed his achievements but he left an enviable c.v. He was exceedingly handsome and agreeable, an athlete, a classicist, a linguist expert in oriental languages, met Goethe, and brought the first hippopotamus to England.
In 1835 he spent a year travelling with a Pawnee tribe which formed his Travels in North America (1839) and this novel. In America he fell in love with heiress Elise Wadsworth but her father forbade all communication between them. Wadsworth senior finally died and they were married in 1850. In the meantime the only intercourse between them was, apparently, by this novel in which he hid the secret code that he "remained faithful and would always remain so" (A.L. Rowse).
Murray's constancy, even if it was known to his family at the time, surely can't have been Augusta's aunt's reason for gifting the book. Augusta seems remembered now mainly as one of the distinguished women who had an affair with Anglican cleric F.W. Robertson - even more of a golden boy than Murray - who apparently wrote in secret code in his diary of his affairs with the women of Brighton. Perhaps aunt Dunmore hoped North American Indians would distract her straying niece. In any case, it didn't work. There are no signs that the book was ever opened again once the bookplate went in. 
*Still, it's all a family matter. Elise died the year after they married and after a decent pause Murray married Augusta's daughter, his cousin, Edith FitzPatrick. Charles' father and older brother were Earls of Dunmore, his mother was born Susan Douglas-Hamilton; Augusta was born Augusta Mary Douglas ...
If I have this straight, then it's a gift from the author's mother to her niece, the author's mother-in-law to be. As Edith was only three or four when this book was published I hope this wasn't all arranged.

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Best Yankee Go Home banner ever

Perry and the black ships 異国船帰帆之図 [Ikokusen Kihan no Zu]. n.p. n.d. [1853-54]. 24x34cm colour woodcut. Old folds and some rubbing round the edges; a couple of tiny pinholes; rather good with pleasing colour. Au$6000

Fabulous, in both senses of the word, rare, and satisfyingly baffling. Even with some help from the accompanying poetry this print defies comprehension. It can only be explained with surmises. Starting with the title which can translate as Foreign ship returning home, who can explain why the ship is sailing towards the astounding fish that is Japan and why the look out is pointing that way? A reasonable guess is that artist couldn't find a better old ship print to work from, the picture works better this way, and the rest is unimportant detail. Why the important men are vomiting over the side we will soon learn.
That fish - fugu - pufferfish - exists by itself in another print, Fugu no Zu, a surimono like print that is known by the copy in the Tokyo Metropolitan Library in one of the volumes compiled by Mokitsu Hachiya. Mokitsu was a Tayasu Tokugawa official and writer.
Some of the same text appears on both. Which print came first seems unknown. The fugu on its own seems likely but, while very similar, our fish is more carefully detailed, usually a sign of the original. What is certain is that both prints appeared between Perry's first visit in July 1853 and his return in February 1854.
The first line of text on the fugu's back reads Hachiman Daibosatsu - Hachiman Great Bodhisattva. By this time Hachiman had evolved from being a god for farmers and fishers to being a god for samurai. That fugu is a floating armory: weapons, armour and regalia, including the crests of three clans defending japan on Odaiba, the artificial island near Shinagawa. Just the sight of that poisonous puffer has sickened the Americans and sent them rushing home, backwards, for a home cooked meal. I think that's what some of the text suggests.
As far as the text on the print goes I would have a better chance of choreographing a dance from it than reading it. I suspect the modern Japanese reader is also stumped by the poetic allusions and puns: the few notes I have found either miss the point or don't attempt to explain it. It is satirical but is it satirising only the Americans fleeing Japan as all unwelcome foreigners before them? Is it also satirising Japan's defenders, the massed clans around Tokyo harbour? Would they be pleased to be a fugu? Is this why the print is so decidedly anonymous?
This has been called a kawaraban which I think breaches the spirit of what a kawaraban is: a cheap illicit news sheet for sale on the streets; but I won't make a fuss about it. I've traced three copies: Tokyo university in a collection of satirical prints before and after meiji - they date it to 1864 but that must be the date of the collection, not this print; Stanford copy in an album of drawings and prints relating to the black ships and foreigners; and a copy in the Rijksmuseum Volkenkunde, Leiden.

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Japanese poster. Shell Tox. n.p. 193-? 77x50cm colour lithograph with metal strips top and bottom and hanging loop at the top. A nice copy. Au$475

Heavy weaponry has been brought in for Japan's war with bugs: that spray pump is no longer a gun, it's a tank. The stalwart armed figure appears everywhere in Shell Tox advertising around the world but that rampant tank seems peculiar to Japan. This is a shop poster with hanging strips. It's on better paper than usual: many Japanese lithograph posters are on heavy paper like this but are liable to become brown and brittle.

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Dutch whispers ... duck's whiskers

Japanese scroll - views of Holland. 阿蘭陀眼鏡之絵 [Oranda megane no-e] n.p. n.d. (18th or early 19th century). 245x29cm, ink and colour on paper. Blank lead in stained and chewed with stains along, and a piece from, the bottom edge of the first view; rumpled. Five scenes each 38cm wide with blank spaces joined between each. Au$2750

This is what anglophones like me, with characteristic sensitivity, used to call Chinese whispers. I've chosen to call this scroll Dutch whispers: a perfect example of a landscape imagined from second hand - at best - reports. No-one in direct contact with a Dutch trader in Nagasaki would have able to walk away with these views uncorrected. Perhaps more telling is that our artist had scant access to European engravings which were being passed around select circles by the end of the 18th century. They may have seen late 16th century Japanese paintings of the Portugese or those breeches were passed down as oral history. Our artist never got near Nagasaki, saw anyone Dutch, or knew anyone who had.
Oranda megane literally translates as Hollander glasses or spectacles, no-e just means picture. So does this mean that the viewer can see the world as the Dutch see it?
This is no child's drawing. Neither is it the work of a great artist. But it is by someone who was, at least, well trained with a brush. Often reports and drawings of foreign doings were recorded and copied by scribes for circulation among officials and the well connected. But any educated person was expert with a brush. This looks more personal, maybe even fun give the possibly poetic title, than anything official. It has the essentials: dikes and canals, windmills, massed colonades, multi storey buildings and tall chimneys ... too many hills and mountains but how could any Japanese picture somewhere as flat as Holland? So a fair bit of detail, all the important stuff, has been gathered, digested and incorporated into these views of the Dutch home planet.

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Ozo. Tonanso Kokoku-bu. Two albums with mounted examples of advertising, packaging, pamphlets, posters, stationery, etc, etc, etc, from the Tonanso Advertising Department. v.p. 1931 to 1934. Two card albums 30x23cm, lettered by hand and numbered 1 and 2; each bulging with mounted examples. 1: 35 leaves, removal from one page. 2: 89 leaves, removal from one opening and one leaf, a couple of other items with some damage, some of it purposeful, eg a piece clipped from each of the large posters. Binding pins of the first album separated by the strain of the heavy cardboard boxes. Au$3000

A wondrous collection; it even includes a full size rubbing of a carved kanban - shop sign - on drafting tissue (94x68cm). This is an education in just how much design, printing and paper engineering goes into getting your product into every home in the country. From the seals that go on packets to letterheads, to promotional postcards, through to a couple of large posters (94x62cm) and that kanban. And packets, packages, boxes ... With these albums you could have Stomachic Ozo back on the market in no time.
Tonanso was the parent company of Ozo - an ointment for every skin, every surface, malady ever suffered by humankind - and Stomachic Ozo which likewise cured every internal malady. Ozo for skin is still made, by another company. Though it now only cures a handful of skin problems, I read somewhere that it still has diehard fans despite the drawback of staining clothes. Almost needless to say: the packaging and advertising are dull dull dull.
From what I can find out, which isn't much, Ozo ointment went on the market in the mid twenties. The current makers have cut any connection with quackery in the past and give no history of their product.

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The tattooed woman outlaw

Ito Kyoto. 鳴渡雷於新 [Naruto Kaminari Oshin ?]. Tokyo, Kinsendo 1886 (Meiji 19). 18x12cm publisher's colour illustrated boards with cloth spine; four illustrations, three double page. A fabulous copy in a chic case by binder, writer and fastidious collector Atsuo Ikuta. Au$500

This might appear to be the first edition but it turns out that an edition appeared in 1883 from a different publisher with different illustrations. This is the story of the tattooed woman desperado Kaminari (or Rai?) Oshin - Naruto Kaminari might translate as roaring or raging thunder.
This immediately reminds us of Benten Kozo Kikunosuke - the tattooed woman outlaw who was outed as a man when a glimpse of her tattoos was seen; Benten was the star of kabuki plays and novels. That story hinged on the premise that no woman would be tattooed like that.
Of course this is the true story of a real person and there's no question that our heroine is a heroine. Nor that she's tattooed. On her back is Keisai Eisen's Hojo Tokimasa; on her buttocks is a dragon; on her thighs is a picture of Iwami Jujiro slaying a giant snake; on her stomach is one of the heroes from "Suikoden", Kumonryu Shijin; on her right arm is Kintaro; and on her left arm is a portrait of four people. A photo exists of what is supposed to be her skin which, in accord with her will, was tanned. It was exhibited in the Taisho period but has since been lost.
She was supposedly still alive and maybe in prison when this book appeared. She had been sentenced to life imprisonment in 1874, escaped in 1882 (see the explosive illustration), was arrested again and pardoned in 1889. She died, probably of TB, the next year, age about 40.
Worldcat finds no copies of this book. Cinii finds four entries for the 1883 edition in Japanese university libraries but not this.

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VIGOUREUX, Clarisse. Parole de Providence et Melanges. [bound with Victor Considerant's Du Sens Vrai de la Doctrine de la Redemption. 3e edition]. Paris, Librairie Phalanstherienne 1847 & 1849. 12mo (19x13cm) morocco backed cloth; [4],128pp & viii,90pp. Generally foxed. Au$275

Second edition of the Parole de Providence with added writings including the Resurrection. Aux Femmes de France. 1846. The first edition appeared in 1834. This was her only book - a Fourierist response to Lamennais' Parole d'une Croyant - but she was a busy journalist for the cause. Her book won a place in the Index and her censor, the Jesuit Zecchinelli, decided that Clarisse Vigoureux was a fictional front for Fourier himself. The book presented, Zecchinelli wrote (here in rough translation), 'An absurd, impious, carnal, diabolical system, which limits itself entirely to the present life and makes men lose hope of the future good to which they are destined in heaven'. He uses the pronoun 'he' for the author all the way through his critique. He is, Philippe Boutry tells us (The Roman Condemnation of the First French Socialism), silent on Clarisse's feminist claims: "I, a woman, have come to demand an account ... I demand an account from the stronger sex that rules the world, and for three thousand years has kept it chained in this inextricable maze." This from the prologue, and there is a chapter on women.
Victor Considerant might have made the apocryphal claim to Fourier that Fourier having created a universe, he, Considerant, would populate it. And he did to an extent that few other utopian socialists of the time could. Considerant was a school chum of Clarisse's son Paul, from that he met Clarisse at the centre of the then small circle around Fourier, and from that he met Fourier's ideas, Fourier himself, and Clarisse's daughter Julie.
I wonder how much the life long devotion and self sacrifice of Clarisse and Julie had to do with Considerant's retreat from Fourier's ideals of the emancipation of women. Was he a spoilt brat? And was God against her? She lost her husband and her first daughter young, lost her fortune when her brother's company went down, lost the revolution, lost the societaire settlement in Texas where she accompanied Considerant and her daughter after his exile and finally, Boutry tells us, the flower garden she planted in front of Considerant's home in San Antonio where she died was eaten by red ants.

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LEROUX, Jules. Le proletaire et le bourgeois. Dialogue sur la question des salaires ... Paris, Perrotin &c 1840. Octavo modern quarter morocco and mottled boards; 32pp. Trimmed a bit close at the top, an excellent fresh copy. Au$125

While older brother Pierre was the philosophical centre of socialism, he claimed the word as his, it seems universally accepted that Jules was the economic brain in the mix.
Like so many of his troublesome contemporaries he ended up in exile, first in Jersey then in Kansas where he established the settlement New Humanity. He didn't stay long and from Neuchatel - still in Kansas - he published the newspaper L'Etoile du Kansas, to me one of the more beguiling titles I've come across. Sounds like it belongs in a Weill/Brecht opera. In 1880 it was on to California and a new community, Icaria-Speranza, where he died in 1883.

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LEROUX, Pierre. De l'Humanite de son Principe, et de son Avenir ... Paris, Perrotin 1840. Two volumes octavo, uncut in modern boards, original wrappers preserved. Adhesion spots on the inner margins of the wrappers, suggesting it has been in a couple of binding; general foxing but not too strident. Au$200

First edition. Leroux eagerly dove into the Saint-Simon pool with Enfantin and Bazard, writing what became the manifesto of the group. He climbed out again quite soon, disillusioned with bourgeois individualism; no two zealous reformers can stay in the same water for long. Sometimes those groups ruptured and splintered so explosively it's hard to see how each came out with their own body parts. In a way he was the first socialist: he claimed the word socialisme was his.

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DIDIER, Charles. Une Annee en Espagne. Brussels, Societe Typographique 1837. Two volumes 12mo, publisher's printed wrappers. A tidemark in the margins of a fair slab of the first volume, taking the shine off what would be a rather good copy. Au$100

This came with a collection of French utopians, socialists and troublemaking feminists and I wonder why. He may well report on social and political troubles and the work of utopian socialists in Spain but without reading the book (and I won't) the closest I can get is that he was one of George Sand's lovers and failed to excite the French about Giacomo Leopardi long before St Beuve succeeded. Having Leopardi die young in the meantime must have helped St Beuve. Didier started out as a Swiss poet and went on to a handful each of novels and travel books.

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RODRIGUES, Benjamin-Olinde. Religion Saint-Simonienne. Appel, Paris, Bureau du Globe 1831. Octavo 16pp, in modern plain card wrapper. Nonfatal stain in the bottom edge. Inscribed on the title is 'Tirage 5000'; surely the number of copies printed, not a claim that this is the 5000th printing. Au$150

Rodrigues was that horror of every anti-semite, a Jewish banker. He was also a mathematician with his own formula and a small but growing group of modern champions pointing out his ignored work, later discovered anew by others and honoured. But that's not important here. After Saint-Simon's death in 1825 - he had been supported by Rodrigues in his final miserable years - Rodrigues and his former student Enfantin became joint partners in running the business, so to speak. Of course they ruptured and in 1832 Rodrigues claimed he was the true apostle. It didn't work so well; he has largely disappeared from the history of the movement.

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MARCHAL, Charles. Cri de Misere. Paris, Levy 1848. Octavo, folded but unstitched; 16pp. Some marks and signs of use. Au$75

I spent too much time trying to distentangle Charles Marchal - former political prisoner, republican of old, hungry for tomorrow (self described on the title) - from Charles Francois Marchal, painter, of almost identical dates. Just when I had it pinned down I saw the portrait of political prisoner Marchal by Nadar in the BNF and the portraits of Marchal, painter, and couldn't pick them apart. But any overweight Frenchman with swirling moustache and goatee could be a stand in. Then we have the references assigning this to Charles Marchal, writer, born some years after 1848.
What we do know is that Marchal's passion for liberty, equality and fraternity had been tested and strengthened in the monarchy's prisons but the cry of misery is that of the starving people betrayed by the revolution and the republic. Sixteen pages wasn't enough: Cri de Guerre and Cri de Liberte followed soon.

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LAMENNAIS, F. [Felicite]. Du Passe et de l'Avenir du Peuple. Paris, Pagnerre 1841. 32mo red gilt calf backed mottled boards. A bit of browning. A small partly erased ownership stamp on the title page and the name Depiot at the base of the spine; likely Joseph Depiot of Gascony who's of no particular interest that I know of, except that he owned this and wrote a poorly thought out ode to liberty. Au$165

First edition, written in prison where he was serving a year's sentence for his Le Pays et le Gouvernement of 1840. A proper renegade priest, Lamennais started well, earning the approval of Leo XII and even the offer of a cardinal's cap. By 1833 he had turned nasty and renounced all connection with the church. 1834's Parole d'un Croyant earned him what must have been one of the speediest encyclicals ever issued. And the ire of Clarisse Vigoureux. After the 1848 revolution he drew up a draft constitution which was apparently rejected for being too radical.

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POMPERY, E. [Edouard de]. Despotisme ou Socialisme. Paris, Librairie Phalansterienne 1849. 17x11cm, folded but not cut or stitched; ie it is still one sheet of paper printed on both sides forming 32pp. Au$100

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POMPERY, Edourd de. La Femme dan l'Humanite : a nature son role et sa valeur sociale. Paris, Hachette 1864. Octavo publsiher's printed wrapper (spine top chipped, signs of a label removed fom the spine). Red Japanese ownership seal on the title page. Au$150

First edition of the Fourierist's feminist manifesto. He appears to have been a friend of Flora Tristan and George Sand, which must have taken some delicate footwork. Sand urged that Pompery marry Flora's daughter Aline rather than waste his time building a tomb to that madwoman (cette folle de Flora).
I wonder if many modern feminists will stomach Pompery, what with him likening a woman to a beautiful rose that needs careful cultivation. But he may have someting more sensible to say.

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BEAUPRE, B. de Notions Generales et Elementaires de Droit Francais a l'Usage des Femmes ... Paris, Mme Ve Maire-Nyon 1844. 12mo calf backed mottled boards (paper surface nibbled by bugs). A few light spots, pretty good, with the bookplate of de Rambuteau - Claude-Philibert Barthelot, prefect of Paris in the 1830s and 40s, the man who gave Paris the pissoir. Au$100

First edition. This didn't have the success predicted by Delphine de Girardin, in one of her Parisian Letters: "Mr. de Beaupre has just published a very interesting book entitled: General and Elementary Notions of French Law for the Use of Women. This work, quite timely, is destined for the greatest success. In France, the future of business belongs to women. Men, dizzy, sleepy, stupefied by the immoderate use of tobacco, will soon no longer be in a position to occupy themselves seriously. In fifty years from now, women will be at the head of all businesses, administrations, banking houses, etc., etc.; they already direct all political affairs surreptitiously; in fifty years, they will conduct all industrial and administrative affairs openly;" But, then again, neither did women.

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SCHOELCHER, Victor. Le Deux Decembre - Les massacres dans Paris. [with] Le Crime de Decembre en Province. Paris, Bibliotheque Democratique 1872 & n.d. 16mo, Together in cloth backed mottled boards (boards rubbed and worn at corners). A bit of spotting in the first work, even natural browning in the second. Au$65

Schoelcher was a life long do-gooder, starting with the abolition of slavery in 1848. He is said to be one of two assembly members on the barricades during Bonaparte's 1851 coup and wrote his histories of the Decembre crimes from exile. Given the size of those books, the speed with which they were published and the sheer mass of names and dates I can only guess that he went into some eidetic trance and dictated non-stop everything he saw and heard while a team of stenographers scribbled furiously.
In the wake of 1871 Victor Poupin's Bibliotheque Democratique has, with Schoelcher's blessing, published these extracts in a cheap popular form. The history of these little books is confused with varied claims about their originality and first appearance which aren't right.
Meanwhile Schoelcher carried on as a left wing senator, working for women's rights and the abolition of capital punishment.

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Compagnons de la Femme. [Emile Barrault]. 1833, ou l'Annee de la Mere. Lyon, Mme S Durval [1833]. Octavo, side stitched; 48pp. Title rather ragged and dusty, dog-eared. A tired copy but worth preserving. Au$150

Probably the second of maybe four issues of this rare work. This is titled February on the leaf after the title; others known to exist are January and two more with different titles that apparently appeared in June and July. One of the more loopy, to be polite, excursions of the Saint-Simonians: a group formed themselves as the Companions of Women and set off to find a prophesised female messiah in the middle east. If nothing else it allowed them to ignore all and any women at home.
Father Enfantin intervened and got them to work building industry and railroads and colonising north Africa.

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BRIANCOURT, Math. [Mathieu]. L'Organisation du Travail et l'Association. Paris, Librairie Phalansterienne 1848. 13x9cm contemporary roan backed mottled boards (rubbed); 8pp catalogue of the Librairie Societaire at the end. Au$80

I'm pretty sure these are the sheets, with a new title page, of the second printing published by the Librairie Societaire in 1846; the first edition appeared in 1845. They might have used standing type or stereos but I doubt it. There were fairly speedy German and American translations.
This is dangerous rabble-rousing socialist stuff in the wake of Fourier. There is a photo of an old Briancourt online but it could be any flint-hearted stubborn old Frenchman. He was a dedicated and dogged Fourieriste until the end.

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FAURE, Philippe. Journal d'un combattant de Fevrier ... notes historiques et de temoignages de la main de Lamennais, de Madame Adele Victor Hugo, de Victor Hugo, de Louis Blanc, de Kossuth, de Ledru-Rollin, de Saffi, de Herzen, de Berjeau, de Greppo, de Bru, de J.Harney, d'Alphonse Bianchi, d'Alfred Talandier, et d'autres amis de Philippe Faure. Publie a Jersey par Auguste Desmoulins. Jersey printed by C. Le Feuvre 1859. 18x12cm contemporary half calf (a bit rubbed) and mottled boards. Red Japanese seal on the title page; some browning but nothing serious. Au$165

Yet another troublesome Frenchman of the 1840s. This is Faure's journal of fighting on the barricades in 1848. He turned journalist after this and caused even more trouble, winding up in exile in London and Jersey after a failed insurrection against Louis Napoleon's 1851 coup. His friend Desmoulins published this, augmented with contributions by a squadron of his illustrious fellow exiles after his death at 33 in 1856.

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Not quite and more than complete

[TOURREIL, Louis-Jean-Baptiste de]. Doctrine fusionienne : lettres apostoliques. Paris, Chez Madame Tourreil 1860. [Various printers 1845 to c1861]. Octavo half morocco (rubbed, cloth marked). A compilation of separately printed items that range between four and 78 pages. Each letter numbered by hand so as to correlate with the table of contents and solve the problem of making sense of it all. Without letters 16 and 17 - see below. Signs of use but nothing serious: corners bumped, scattered browning; pretty good. Neat inscription of Jules Remy who may or may not be the naturalist traveller. The errata have been transcribed into the text in an equally neat hand. Au$500

From what I can figure out from skimming a few digested paragraphs, Tourreil's fusionism is a casserole of Fourier, Leroux, Saint-Simon, revelation and insect hives. A rich dish for academics in gender studies. He did have some disciples and they did more to propagate his utopian notions after his death than he managed.
This contains the collected title page and preface leaf for his Lettres 1 to 22 dating from 1845 on (but for 16 and 17), a table of contents, a 30 page analytic table, and an errata leaf for those 22 letters. Then come four more items: 1. Lettre ... a notre frere D....., de Bordeaux ... February 1861; 30pp; 2. Oraison Pleniere [... &c], undated; 28pp and a plate; 3. Credo de la religion fusionienne L'Amour Divin-Esprit de Verite; undated 12mo, 12pp, title partly in manuscript; 4. Loi des Lois; undated folding broadside with an engraving.
I found a description of a copy that apparently belonged to Gustave Mouravit which had all 22 letters and the four extra items, described by Mouravit as everything Tourreil published, without doubt unique. Claims by owners like this should be treated as dubious. The BN doesn't come up anything like all the letters but they do have something titled Religion fusionienne apparently written with Leon Galibert and printed in 1845
Our copy has 32 blank leaves where letters 16 and 17 should be. It seems clear that when the first owner bought his letters Madame Tourreil had run out of copies of those two but she did have what had been printed since. This often happens with compilations of separate items put together by the author.

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Louis Menard. Hermes Trismegiste : traduction complete ... etude sur l'origine des livres hermetiques. Paris, Didier 1866. Octavo quarter morocco and mottled boards. Occasional patches of browning depending on paper stock. Rather good.  Au$200

First edition; there were a few more over the next hundred years. Menard was another of those damn French socialists of the 1840s, fleeing to London after 1848 to escape a prison term. He settled down eventually into a life of respectable mystic paganism and pedagogy.

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CLARETIE, Jules. Les Murailles Politiques de la France Pendant la Revolution de 1870-71. Chute de l'Empire - La guerre - Le siege de Paris. Complement indispensable de l'Histoire de la Revolution de 1870-71. Paris, Publication de la Librairie Illustree [187-?]. Hefty quarto quarter calf and mottled boards (some wear to edges); tri-colour title page; ii,1010 pages of examples and 12pp table of posters. Many posters or notices printed on colour backgrounds, a number printed on coloured papers. Some browning and spotting; pretty good. Au$275

The revolution, the war, the siege, the commune, as seen on the walls of Paris: the posters, proclamations, notices ... It is, as the title says, an indispensable complement to Claretie's five volume history of the revolution; I suggest the history is the dispensable part.

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