Rockwood, Harry. [Ernest A. Young?]. Clarice Dyke, the Female Detective. NY, American Publishers Corporation [189-?]. Octavo publisher's decorated cloth. Inner front hinge cracked but holding, browning of the cheap paper. Inscription dated 1897 on the front fly. Au$450

Clarice Dyke might not be the first professional American woman detective, as often claimed, but she is early. This first appeared in 1883, she first appeared in stories about her husband, Donald Dyke, the Down-East Detective the year before and quickly earned her own book.
There were maybe four or five editions, by different publishers, of this between 1883 and 1900 but none of them are easy to find.

Shochikuza News. Osaka, Shochikuza 1925-1929. 38 issues 22x15cm publisher's colour illustrated wrappers; mostly four pages and covers. Minor signs of use. Au$2900

A well chosen group. Shochiku, now part of the megafauna of the entertainment industry, spread into film from Kabuki in 1920, built Japan's first western theatre in Osaka in 1923, and soon had a chain of cinemas showing foreign movies. This was their weekly news letter. I think the cover was shared but the contents were printed for each theatre. Inspired and aspiring young designers presumably worked on the usual terms: no credit and less money. There is quite a bit of remarkable anonymous graphic art of the twenties and early thirties with the Shochikuza banner. Not all of it is good but what is can be fabulous. As the thirties progressed the adventurousness evaporated and by the mid-late thirties they looked like film magazines from anywhere.
Here we can identify the artist of some. Those signed Shin or 伸吉 are by Yamada Shinkichi who started in Shochikuza's publicity department in 1922 and worked his way up to set and costume designer. There are ten here.

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SPURGEON, Caroline F.E. Keats' Shakespeare ; a descriptive study based on new material. Oxford Univ Press 1929. Octavo gilt decorated crushed green morroco by Bayntun-Riviere; colour frontispiece, b/w plates. Japanese library stamps on the title page. Au$200

Second edition, with some corrections and additions, of this study of Keats' annotated copy of Shakespeare. I bought this from a photo because I wanted to know the story behind this extravagant binding on a piece of scholarly minutiae. In the photo it looked like a Riviere binding to me. The Japanese bookseller was short on detail, including the library stamps and the binder, but I was sure there had to be something to indicate who had this bound and why. There isn't. 
Spurgeon is interesting enough, the first woman professor at the University of London, a campaigner for women in universities, author of the still regarded book on Shakespeare's imagery, and now something of an airbrushed cover girl for the magazine Your Ex.

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A malicious fraud

Fukuzawa Yukichi (but not). 西洋各國事情 [Seiyo Kakkoku Jijo]. (First series and two thirds of the second). Naniwa (Osaka), Nishobo [1868?]. Five volumes 18x13cm, publisher's wrappers with printed title labels (cover surfaces somewhat nibbled but not chewed); 26 colour woodcuts including two double page and one four page views. Signs of use, a marginal stain in the bottom margins of early pages in the third volume of the first series; pretty good. Au$1850

Fukazawa was a member of the first Japanese embassies to the United States, in 1859, and Europe, in 1862, and his Seiyo Jijo (Things Western), the most important and influential Japanese study of western nations of the period, was published in parts betweeen 1866 and 1870. It was such a best seller that piracies, fakes and spin-offs soon appeared. This is one of those fakes but it is, thanks to the illustrations, far more appealing than the original.
 The foreign ships and Russians are charming but not so remarkable, the flags are flags whether or not they actually exist, but the western handwriting is mysterious and intriguing and the four panel view of a massive canal towering high over a port city must be one of the best imagined architecture renderings of all time.
 The first title page claims Fukuzawa Sensei as author. Highly malicious and fraudulent says the introduction to Keio University's online version of the real Fukuzawa book. There we're told this was pillaged wholesale from an 1845 book, Seiyo Jin Senjutsu Yakuhon, writer unknown. This is at least partly true. From the fragmentary records of that book I can find I confirm that it's likely flags come directly from there and I found sections of text that seemed the same, though recut. But flags were constantly copied from one book to another and as for the good pictures ... I haven't found that city anywhere else.
 A note in the Union Catalogue entry says the text is from Mitsukuri Shogo's Kon'yo Zushiki (1847) but looking through Waseda's online copy of that left me baffled.
 This is the second copy to come through here but until I found this copy (a 13 years search) I had no clue there was a second series. It seems pretty definite that six volumes were produced but I can't find a record of anything in Japan but the first three volumes. That is the Kobe University copy illustrated in the Union Catalogue. What we have here is the presumed first series: upper, middle and lower volumes, which are divided into five parts; and two volumes of the second: heaven and people, which have parts one, four and five. So there should be a middle - earth - volume with parts two and three. An early owner, as was common, has written a short title on the bottom edges with volume numbers one to six, no five of course.
 Fukuzawa asked the government in 1868 to uphold the law, ban the counterfeit editions and frauds - he listed this book among them - seize the blocks, confiscate their profits, and hand them over to him. I doubt this happened but it does seem to mark the first concept of copyright in Japan.

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Catalogue - gasoline pumps. Tokyo Tatsuno Engineering Works. Gasoline Measuring Equipments and Safety Storage Apparatus [sic]. The company c1933. 28x20cm publisher's printed wrapper; 68,[8],[16]pp, illustrated throughout, several pages in colour. Used, some creased corners but most acceptable. This opens right to left with a title page, in English, at the other end for those used to starting there. Au$475

If you had the idea to open a gas station in Japan Tatsuno was the obvious place to go for everything you needed, from underground tanks to an air pole for tyres. They are still going (still run by a Tatsuno) and their company history is a long list of world firsts, starting with Japan's first fuel dispenser in 1919.
 This would be an exemplary catalogue in any case but it is lifted to another level with those 16 pages at the end with vivid colour photographs of 40 service stations around Japan. This section is introduced by Takarazuka star Fukoko Sayo, backed by a chorus line, holding a Tatsuno catalogue. Why? Tatsuno didn't know either.
 The front cover and several illustrations make it clear that running a service station was a respectable occupation for women.

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The arse end of New York

McCabe, James D. & Kato Masanosuke. 西洋穴探 [Seiyo Anasagashi]. Tokyo, Nakajima Seiichi 1879-80 (Meiji 12-13). Three volumes 19x12cm, publisher's cloth backed printed boards (some chipping from board edges); scattered illustrations throughout, some full or double page. Signs of use but quite good for these flimsy 'boru' books. Au$450

It was time Japan learned that not all in the west was wonderful.This is a translation or adaptation from the dark sections of, most likely, McCabe's Lights and Shadows of New York (1872) rather than his pseudonymous earlier version. Here are the wretched and unsavoury of New York. Anasagashi usually translates politely as fault finding but ana can translate as buttocks or arse (as well as pit, orifice, cavity and many other unpleasant places). It was used in the titles of books and prints that promised to expose hypocricy and dish up the dirt.
 Kato Masanosuke was a journalist, political reformer and soon to be politician. But. The better known politician, Ozaki Yukio, claimed he was the the translator of this title in his autobiography. I can't find any record of there being two books with the same title. They were at Keio university at much the same time, were journalistic reformers at the time this appeared, both spent decades in the same parliament; they must have known each other pretty well. So, did he have some part in this or is his claim a misremembering? Let me know if you have the answer.
 This is a 'ball cover' (boru hyoshi, apparently a corruption of 'board') book, a signal of modernity and the Japanese equivalent of a yellowback: flimsy western style bindings with lithograph covers that rarely survive in good shape. Worldcat finds one location, for volume two, outside Japan.

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How to travel

Yasumi Roan. 旅行用心集 [Ryoko Yojinshu]. Toto (ie Tokyo), Suharaya 1810 (Bunka 7). 18x12cm publisher's wrapper with printed title label; illustrations on 27 pages. Minor signs of use, rather good. Au$1250

First edition. This singular book has no parallel in Japan and nothing much elsewhere until mid century with writers like Francis Galton and Thomas Baines. There were plenty of guide books in Japan and the west, unhelpful vocabularies in many languages for Europe; but nothing like detailed instructions on how to travel.
It's difficult to choose an example or two from the 61 introductory precautions, they are all jewels of experience from an expert traveller. A lot of useful advice on health and medications, as well as Yasumi's three books on medical matters, led Constantine Vaporis to guess that Yasumi was a physician of some sort (Caveat Viator; Monumenta Nipponica 44; 1989).
What to wear; what to take; how to behave; what to do when arriving at an inn: find the toilet and check all exits; what to avoid: too much cheap booze (drink none in winter), poisonous insects, inn prostitutes; how to find your way again if bewitched by foxes or badgers; how to wear in your essential straw sandals and how to treat blisters; how to avoid sea sickness (first, don't get on a boat unless there's no other choice) and motion sickness if riding in a palanquin ... there is too much to list here. In any case, there is now an English translation in print.

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Paper toy letter. 興亜進軍絵図入 [Koa Shingun Ezu Iri]. February 1943 (Showa 18). Colour printed letter form (24x45cm) with the form on one side and the colour map and details on the other. With the row of nine miniature flags strung together between two flag poles, intact and folding up and down as intended; two destroyers that hinge upright. Signs of use, pretty good. Au$200

An irresistible gimmick for soldiers to send home. Those old enough to remember aerogrammes and similar letter forms will know how this works. The letter is written on the lined side and it all folds and seals to be a post paid letter. What's special here is the map showing the advances made by the Japanese up to February 1943 - and their allies - with bombs and sinking ships dotting the Asia-Pacific. The flags, including Japan, Germany, Italy and Manchukuo, attached to the poles and the poles to the letter, flutter across half the world while their ships roam the seas.
The National Library illustrates their copy, dated May but apparently identical otherwise, as was a copy dated June which went through here a few years ago. Across the letter side is lightly printed 撃ちてし止まむ - uchiteshi yaman - which is translated differently in every reference I find, including 'fight without quarter', 'shoot and never stop shooting', 'smite and be done'. Taken from a Sato poem, it became a national slogan and a film.
These are not so hard to find but finding one with everything still there and in place is not so easy.

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HEALEY, Daniel. The Seven Christians Of Championdom - A Tale of the Times. Written, and published for and by The Author, Sydney ... 1885. 26x21cm original half cloth & marbled boards with gilt on black title label (wear to tips and edges, label quite rubbed); 152pp. Printed from handwriting by some kind of duplication or autolithography. Bookplate recording its gift from John Lane Mullins to St Sophia's Library. Au$1200

Singular, eccentric ... all the usual labels apply to this distopian, or at least satirical, romance of the city of Yendis, capital of Champiana. Daniel Healey might be better known as author Whaks Li Kell but it's unlikely. That's the painful pseudonym he used for his other known book, The Cornstalk, his habits and habitats (1893), in which his target expanded from Sydney to the colony of New South Wales.
This did receive a cruel notice in The Bulletin (August 1 1885) but it was written with a hand as heavy on the wit lever as Healey's by someone who would rather be cute than intelligible. It's hard to figure out exactly what the reviewer is mocking. Elsewhere I find a Daniel Healey was an unsuccessful independent candidate for the inner city seat of Sydney-Cook in 1898 and an unsuccessful Labor (possibly) candidate for Sydney-Bligh in 1901 - which sounds like our author - but there were a lot of Daniel Healeys.
How many copies of this were produced is unknown but I'd suggest the four copies found by Trove plus this one must be a noticeable percentage. The only copy I've found sold in recent decades was this same copy.

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Kanagi Robun(?), Ichiyusai Kuniyoshi (aka Utagawa Kuniyoshi) &c. 安政見聞誌 [Ansei Kenmonshi - also transcribed as Ansei Kenbunshi]. n.p. n.d. [185-?]. Three volumes 24x17cm, publisher's patterned wrappers with title labels (a bit grubby). Colour woodcuts, some double page, some folding out over four pages; in some places the text is printed on very thin paper and mounted on the blank backs of woodcuts; what looks like an astrological slip is part printed on the page and the rest on a pasted folding slip. Signs of thumbing, a bit of negligible worming; for this book an almost outstanding copy. Au$3850

I had pretty much given up on ever finding a decent complete copy of this, one of the most remarkable 19th century illustrated books from anywhere. There must be a better copy out there somewhere but I wasn't going to take the chance I'll live long enough to see it
All news about the great Ansei Edo earthquake that devastated Tokyo in November 1855 was nominally suppressed but the Tokugawa did nothing much about enforcing the ban and a myriad of prints and kawaraban were circulating within days. I gather that it was only when what could be seen as slurs on or insults to the Tokugawa administration were sighted that steps were taken. From Fujiokaya's Diary (Fujiokaya Nikki) - a vast compilation of gossip, rumour and stories about Tokyo gathered over decades by the professional information broker - I gather that the publisher Mikawaya began printing in March 1856 - selling in April - and had such a demand for copies that, in May, he delayed sending the blocks on to the next publisher in line. In the meantime the authorities arrived and fines and punishments were handed round. Who was involved and who got punished is confusing to me but I found no mention of the blocks being seized. 
Kanagi Robun is usually named as the main author. He later said he was. He escaped punishment because he did not sign the work but questions about his authorship were still being asked quite recently. I gather miscreant contributors had whatever payment they received confiscated and were fined on top. Smart operators made sure their names stayed out of the records. 
That illustrated machine is a seismograph.

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Breaking the law

KNIGHT, John Henry. Notes on Motor Carriages with hints for purchasers and users. London, Hazell &c 1896. Octavo publisher's cloth backed illustrated boards (a bit rubbed & worn at corners); 84pp, illust with cuts & photo illustrations. Minor signs of use, a pretty good copy. Au$900

Only edition? Just about the first book on cars written for the English everyman. Engineer Knight was the motor car equivalent of a suffragette. I don't think he hurled bricks but in 1895 he did, with willful disregard of the law, take to the highway in his own motor car without a license and a man to walk in front with a red flag. He and his fellow reckless hoons got the red flag act repealed not long after he wrote this. In the last passage he hopes the law will change in time for the planned October 1100 guinea road-carriage competition. It happened in November.
I read somewhere that this was the first automobile book added to the Detroit Public Library - in 1896 - the beginning of their self proclaimed "premier" auto collection.

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Ose Keishi & Onchi Koshiro. 新露西亜画観 : силуэт Новой России [Shin Roshia Gakan]. Tokyo, Ars 1930 (Showa 5). 20x18cm publisher's colour illustrated boards and illustrated card slipcase; numerous photo illustrations, other illustrations and decorations, one full page in red and black. Box browned, used but solid; spine tips a touch rubbed; a nice copy. Au$750

First edition. Ose was an industrious reporter and interpreter of all things Soviet for Japan. I didn't see this in Hokkin Hon (Banned Books) but of course he has other entries.
The design is by Onchi Koshiro. Onchi has plundered constructivist sources and photo-montage but has - as often - made it his own and Japanese.

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SLADEN, Douglas. Fair Inez. A romance of Australia. London, Hutchinson [1918]. Octavo publisher's cloth; 16 page publisher's list for spring 1918 at the end. Minor signs of use and some spotting or browning, a pretty good copy.
Inscribed affectionately and signed by Sladen in June 1935 to "Dorothy ... another English soul who married an Australian." A small pencil note on the front paste down suggests that Sladen paid 2/6 for this copy in April 1935. If so, he's not the only author to buy their own books to give away. Au$400

First edition of this futuristic fantasy which opens in the year 2000 with the great airship Murrumbidgee from London coming into land at Melbourne. Returning home is Pat Lindsay Gordon, son of Adam Lindsay Gordon IV and great-grandson of Adam Lindsay Gordon II, in turn the grandson of a cousin of the revered poet. The Gordons obviously breed hard and fast. His sister Inez will doubtless be the femme fatale of the book. Read on yourself.

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Yokomitsu Riichi. 時計 [Tokei]. Tokyo, Sogensha 1935 (Showa 10). 20x14cm publisher's black cloth with mounted aluminium panel on the front; cloth covered slipcase with printed labels (cloth browned, knocked, used but solid). Aluminium panel with light scratching; white spine lettering a bit rubbed Some browning; a very good copy for this book. The aluminium panel, tied on with thread is often missing, usually battered and scratched; the spine is usually disintegrating with the white lettering gone. A sheet of paper signed by Yokomitsu Riichi and Sano Shigejiro mounted on the front fly. Au$650

First edition; there were plenty more but not with this fabulously impractical binding. Yokomitsu was proclaimed a god of literature around 1930. At first mocking, it soon was used earnestly by his fans. Judging by his photos he could well have been a rock star in later generations. His friend Kawabata Yasunari wrote in 1933 that (crudely translated) "the chorus of praise by young people sounds like a song that might enshrine him in the hall of misfortune". His writings during the war earnt him the title of literary war criminal but he didn't live so long anyway.
The cover is by Sano Shigejiro, painter and prodigious designer of covers for some fifty years from 1930 on. He was a friend of Yokomitsu and did the covers for a few of his books. He apparently studied with Matisse and hung out with Miro in the late thirties.

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Fireworks. 孝坂流花火秘伝書 [Kosaka-ryu Hanabi Hidensho]. n.p. n.d. Probably early to mid 18th century. 12x17cm wrapper with remnant of a label; manuscript in ink on 31 double leaves (62pp), illustrations on six pages. Covers gnawed but not into the text pages, well thumbed but very decent. Au$950

Here are the secret methods of the Kosaka school. This is the earliest known fireworks manual in Japan; it dates from 1706. There are almost no published manuals of Japanese fireworks before the 20th century. Risho published a small book around 1817 and that is properly rare. Such information was occult knowledge, circulated in manuscript and passed from master to apprentice.

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Costume. Ladies' Garments and How to Make Them. A practical treatise on the art of sewing, pressing & other details ... as employed by tailors ... by "Several Experts" ... London, John Williamson [c1894]. Octavo publisher's gilt decorated red cloth; [8],80pp, several illustrations and diagrams. Minor signs of use, a rather good copy. Au$150

A slender book maybe, but so packed with information that I wonder how Williamson thought they could justify all the other tailoring books and magazines they published. I can only find much later versions of this - and not many of those - in OCLC and Copac.

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Nishimura Shigeki and others. 婦女鑑 [Fujo Kagami]. Tokyo, Kunaisho 1887 (Meiji 20). Six volumes 23x16cm, publisher's wrappers with title labels; double page page woodcut illustrations. An excellent set. Au$375

First edition of this official piece of moral education for women: the lives of inspiring women around the world. It was republished well into the 20th century. Moral philosopher and scholar of things western, Nishimura tutored emperor Meiji on the West. Apparently this book had some influence on the choice of Nishimura to head the Peeress's School the following year.
It is a monument to self denial and sacrifice on the part of women - clear enough from the illustrations - not much different from similar books for girls anywhere in the world but that it is deeply Confucian. Looking at the remarkable likeness of descriptions of this book by modern historians I wonder who read it and who just read each other.

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Asian labour in Queensland. Eleven parliamentary papers relating to the introduction of Chinese or 'Coolie' labourers from India: Asiatic Labour ... 1861; [with] Asiatic Labour (Despatches relative to.) ... 1861; [with] Coolie Immigration (petition in favor of.) ... 1861; [with] Chinese and Coolie Immigration ... Petition ... 1862; [with] Coolie Immigration. (Petition.) ... 1874 [with] Immigration of Chinese and Indian Coolies ... 1875; [with] Coolie Immigration. (Petition.) ... 1882. [with] Labourers From British India. (Further Correspondence ...) 1883; [with] Correspondence respecting Proposed Introduction of Labourers from British India ... 1884; [with] Labourers from British India (Further correspondence ...) ... 1884; [with] Labourers From British India. (Further Correspondence ...) 1884. [with] Labourers From British India. (Further Correspondence ...) 1885. Brisbane, Govt printers 1861 - 85. Foolscap, stitched, stapled or loose as issued; 4pp on three leaves; 15pp; 1pp; 1pp; 1pp; 17pp; 1pp; 13pp; 16pp; 4pp; 1pp; 4pp. One of the single leaf petitions a bit ragged round the edges. Au$650

More than 70 foolscap pages of depressing reading as the landowners of Queensland seek to introduce the cheapest possible labour while the rest of white Queensland seeks to keep them out. Just by the way, was it cheaper to buy and keep a slave or import indentured labour? A good field hand in antebellum America was a serious investment. By the 1880s it becomes apparent that Queensland governments seek not to offend powerful landowners nor risk the outrage of an electorate confronted with unwhite immigrants; they are busy sidestepping.
The early petitions make the point that it would be "unjust, even if it were practicable" for any Anglo-Saxon to "perform field labour under a tropical sun" while a thriving Queensland cotton industry stocked with Coolies would go a long way toward the abolition of slavery elsewhere.

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[STRETTON, Julia Cecilia]. The Valley of a Hundred Fires. London, Hurst & Blackett 1860. Three volumes octavo contemporary half roan. Minor spotting and signs of use; a pretty good and neat set in what looks a colonial binding. Au$350

First edition. Mrs Stretton - not to be confused with Hesba Stretton - was one of the league of plucky women who took to writing to support their families after their husband dropped dead or deserted them in a welter of drunken cruelty, loose women and gambling debts. In her case she began as the widow de Winton (she was born Collinson) and carried on after she married Mr Stretton. This Wales set novel is apparently based on her own family, the heroine is her mother. Sadleir apparently ignored Mrs Stretton; Wolff had a couple of her novels but not this one.

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Paper 京紙 : 京千代紙 [Kyogami : Kyochiyogami]. n.p [c1930?]. 12x24cm card album, ribbon tied with a printed label on the front; 91 colour woodcut printed paper samples mounted three a page on double folded leaves, each with a serial number stamped under it. Au$400

Very cute, this is a sample book of chiyogami - special decorated paper - aimed at the origami marked according to the cover label. That label is a printed slip mounted on a piece of chiyogami.
There are two series here: the first, numbered to 74, is bright and cheerful; the second, numbered to 17, is even more bright and cheerful. You can buy mountains of mass produced chiyogami these days but a glance at this album will convince you it's not the same thing. Experts might be able to tell the difference between Kyoto and Tokyo - Kyochiyogami and Edochiyogami - papers. I won't live long enough to master that.
I'm not convinced by my transcription of the first character of the title.

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Naruko Isshi. 大鷹裁判記 : 明治擬律 [Ootaka Saibanki : Meiji Giritsu]. Tokyo, Kyowa Shoten 1889 (Meiji 22). 19x13cm publisher's colour illustrated litho boards, cloth spine; five full page and three double page illustrations. Expected browning of the cheap paper; used but rather good for a flimsy thriller meant to be read to pieces Au$300

First edition. I'm not sure what happens in this chronicle of the Ootaka trial but I assure you it involves a lot of violence and murder, some police and maybe a beautiful ghost. The preface seems to talk about exploring new ways of writing fiction and western novels but, as it's poetic, I can't make much sense of it.
And I can't tell you anything about Naruko. The name appears on two books published in 1889 and one in 1892, all from the same publisher.
This is a 'ball cover' (boru hyoshi, apparently a corruption of 'board') book, a signal of modernity and the Japanese equivalent of a yellowback: flimsy western style bindings with lithograph covers that rarely survive in good shape.

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Hanai Oume. Shuyotei Sofu. 花井於梅 粹月奇聞 [or 花井お梅 酔月奇聞] [Hanai Oume Suigetsu Kibun]. Tokyo, Ishikawa Denkichi December 1887 (Meiji 20). Two volumes 18x12cm, colour wood covers by Utagawa Kunimatsu; two double page, two single illustrations at the front, four large illustrations through the text. A pleasing copy. Au$500

One of the prizes of the dokufu craze of the early Meiji. Dokufu - poisonous women - are nothing new of course but the happy conjunction at the advent of mass circulation newspapers of a beautifully timed series of murders by unvirtuous young women set the sensation mongers and their readers all of a fever. Newspaper to book, lurid print to kabuki and back again, dokufu were all the rage for a couple of decades. Along the way crime fiction was born and, in a way, modern Japanese literature.
Hanai Oume earned her place as one on the trinity of great dokufu for the murder of her employee for helping her sponging father muscle her out of her business - the teahouse Suigetsu. The famous umbrella was part of her defence.
Of course nothing about cheap popular trash like this is going to be straightforward. The colophon here tells us this is a reprint but lists the first as November 1887 which must be a newspaper appearance. Keio university's copy which uses the same covers is a different printing from a different publisher (Mizuno Ikutaro) with a colophon listing nothing before December while Yamanashi University's copy, published by Yamazaki Matasaburo and dated the same day as Keio's, is yet another different printing with a different cover. None of this is helped by the book being titled by both variants in the same copy.

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Kawaraban. 大日本長崎ヨリ萬國海上里數 [Dai Nihon Nagasaki Yori Yorozu Kuni Kaijo Risu?]. n.p. earlyish to mid 19th century. Woodcut 32x41cm. Piece torn from the right edge affecting a few characters repaired. Still, a good copy. Au$500

The classic Dutch ship was a required souvenir for every Japanese tourist in Nagasaki and, in various forms and fancies, was dusted off and reworked all over Japan every time a stranger appeared around Japan. This may have been occasioned by news of a Russian ship, American, British, or to fill in a dull patch in the foreign barbarian trade.
Maybe hard to see in my shaky pictures but this is one cheery bunch of sailors. They look more like they are having fun than working.
Kawarabans were illicit news sheets for the streets and produced by the million for a couple of hundred years so of course few survive. They were produced for anything more interesting than the drop of a hat. Foreign visitors were exciting news, much less common than flood, fire, quake, and famine.

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Kawaraban. Perry and the black ships. [Kairiku Okatame] Untitled large kawaraban of the arrival of Perry's black ships in 1854, the defences and the American parade. These defence of Tokyo and Perry ship prints usually have 'Kairiku Okatame' in the title. n.p. [1854]. 45x62cm colour woodcut on two joined sheets. A largish hole towards the top right, bottom edge stained and a bit damaged, some unimportant holes elsewhere. Repaired with backing some time ago, the damage at the bottom and small worm holes have happened since. Au$900

It would be wrong to call this a poor cousin of the similar kawaraban, Kairiku Okatame Onbasho Tsuke, the largest and most sumptuous I've yet seen. This is still an aristocrat among kawaraban. It is also a four in one print: details of the clans defending Tokyo bay at the top, the American procession in the middle, close ups of two of Perry's black ships bottom left, and a map of the whole situation bottom right.

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Kawaraban. Perry and the black ships. 阿女里香通人 [Amerikatsujin]. n.p. [1854] 23x31cm woodcut. Folded; rather good. Au$300

This lesson in the American language might be useless but when has that been an impediment to success? Those three figures are Americans having fun and that's a list of Japanese words or phrases and phonetic transcriptions from American. One ('child') is not too far off. Since the translator signs himself as 'foolish' was it ever meant to be taken seriously? I'm sure the artist's seal, something rarely, perhaps never, seen on a kawaraban is also a joke but it's too subtle for me.
In one piece I found on this print the writer found it necessary to blur the last two words but the less prudish Tokyo Museum, thank goodness, transcribed them all. So you get a good idea of what the children and vulgar of Edo were chanting or shouting at each other. No American would have understood what they were saying but they knew what they meant.

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Perry and the black ships. 新製楽草紙 [Shinsei Tanoshimi Soshi]. n.p. n.d. [1854]. 18x12cm publisher's wrapper, most of the label missing; 20 double leaves; illustrated pretty much throughout, double page colour map at the beginning. Some insignificant worming at the beginning, signs of use but quite good. Au$600

One of two volumes with this title. As far as I can figure out this is mostly a compilation of separately issued prints or kawaraban - illicit news sheets - about the arrival of Perry and the black ships. Afficianados will recognise some of those pictures from other kawaraban. Much of this is satirical or parody which makes it unintelligible for me. I can tell you that the trio of celebrating Americans accompanies a list of mock American vocabulary (see the item above). And that ancient looking black man is the youngest person on that page - 35 years old the caption tells us.

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Putiatin mission? Perry and the black ships. Two drawings: a view of the American black ships and their reception at Kurihama in 1853; portraits of a foreign woman, young girl, young man and goat, dated 1855. n.p. 1853-55. Two ink and colour drawings 27x38cm. Small hole in the second drawing. Au$500

Despite all the detail I'm still uncertain about where these foreigners came from. I can tell you their names, ages and give a pretty good physical description of the woman. I can't tell the goat's age but we are given it's size. Since it's February 1855 at Shimoda I'd say they are Russian. The surprise for me is that women and children were included in the Putiatin mission.
That American ship on the left in the other drawing is not damaged, it's shrouded in smoke.

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Kishi Toshio. 西洋算法 : 比例法 附分数術問題 [Seiyo Sanpo : Hireiho Bunjutsu Mondai]. Tokyo, Kagaido 1871 (Meiji 4). 23x15cm publisher's? wrapper with mounted title. Signs of use but pretty good for an old maths book. That's the title page mounted on the front cover, likely removed before binding. Au$135

Japanese students are introduced to simple western algebra and proportional ratios. Until the 1860s and the establishment of modern schools - for officers at first - western mathematics, like all things western, was the domain of a few curious scholars. Mathemeticians gave credit to the west in astronomy but judged western theory decidely inferior. Such disdain was of no use to a government determined to know everything. Mathematics came after languages, history, geography ... but not by much.

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MANSON, Marsden. The Yellow Peril in Action. A possible chapter in history. Privately published, San Francisco, January 1907. Octavo publisher's printed wrapper; 32pp (including two blank leaves at the end), folding map. Au$125

A salutary piece of yellow peril literature, this is the history of the war between the USA and China - with help from Japan - in 1910. I'll tell you now it didn't end well for America. Manson was the San Francisco City Engineer during the immediate post earthquake years and some of his predilection for technical detail has crept in here. This understandable desire to reinforce polemic with fact is the mark of the amateur and usually the reason why such tales are forgotten but Manson hasn't tried to disguise his aim with fiction; a fair bit is straightforward xenophobic agitprop.
I wonder how much the cataclysm of the San Francisco earthquake and fire had to do with this but I find no direct mention. Is it odd that it went to press so soon after the quake - Manson's preface is dated December 1906 - without a word? Did Manson think the shock of the quake was a good prompt for a battered public to take notice of an even greater threat? Certainly there was a movement to push the Chinese out of central San Francisco as rebuilding began. Was this a misguided bit of timing that guaranteed his pamphlet would be ignored?

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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 (but Raifushuppansha 1987). 27x19cm publisher's printed wrapper, illustrated card slipcase; 110pp, photo illustrations, renderings and plans. At cost price. Au$250

Not the great bargain I hoped for. This is not the first edition, it's a facsimile I didn't know existed until I unwrapped this. It's a good facsimile, very good, and it's more obscure than the original. It's a local production by a Hokkaido publisher - not to be confused with current Tokyo 'Life Publishing' which deals in puerile self help stuff.
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, even while many of his buildings have vanished. 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. They weren't reprinted of course.
Worldcat finds no copies outside Japan and it's not common in Japan, neither the original nor this reprint. 

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Exposition - Hokkaido 1931. 国産振興北海道拓殖博覧会記念写真帖 [Kokusan Shinko Hokkaido Takushoku Hakurankai Kinen Shashin Jo]. Hokkaido Takushoku Hakurankai, 1931 (Showa 6). 27x37cm publisher's patterned silk, cord ties; title page, photo illustrations on 35 leaves of heavy gloss paper, 12 pages of text and a plan. A nice copy. Au$600

A luxurous celebration, with exemplary printing, of the 1931 Hokkaido Colonization Exposition. Had you heard of it? Me neither. Thankfully the important old men who always head such books don't take up too much space and it gets more interesting the further we go in. What's wonderful is the number of pavilions that might have come straight out of the pages of the exposition volume of the Gendai Shogyo Bijutsu Zenshu - the Complete Commercial Artist - of 1928-30 (see the next item). Either the same designers were at work or the organisers handed out copies of the book and said, "go for your life."
At the very end we find what seem to have been the big draws for the 600,000 plus visitors: the human cannonball, the world's fattest woman, and dancing girls.

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Publisher's sample book

Hamada Masuji, Sugiura Hisui and others. 現代商業美術全集 : 装飾本 : 内容見本 [Gendai Shogyo Bijutsu Zenshu : Soshokuhon : Naiyo Mihon] [The Complete Commercial Artist]. Tokyo, Ars c1928. 26x20cm publisher's cloth and printed card slipcase; [2],8pp, 62 pages of illustrations and plates, most in colour, 16pp of text. The blank leaves used to bulk out the binding have been removed, odd in a copy that looks like it has barely been opened. Au$800

I didn't know this existed until quite recently. This is the publisher's sample book for the Gendai Shogyo Bijutsu, one of the great monuments of Japanese modernism, published by subscription in 24 volumes. It contains a sample range of illustrations from the work and explanatory text. The set was issued in wrappers or this, presumably more expensive, cloth binding.
Largely the work of Hamada Masuji - credited with the invention of design as a profession in Japan - the Shogyo Bijutsu is an encyclopaedic gathering of all that is new and exciting in Russia, Europe, Britain and America from art nouveau to bauhaus and constructivism, with futurism, expressionism, dada and everything else along the way lavishly mixed with Japanese responses to, and digestion of, these western ideas. Any number of exciting artists and designers contributed. Except to the binding.

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Advertising. Katsumi Tsuji. 傑作廣告圖案大集成 [Kessaku kokoku zuan daishusei]. Tokyo, Kobunsha 1934. 27x20cm publisher's illustrated cloth, illustrated slipcase; 320pp with hundreds of illustrations (eight pages in colour, the rest in varying monochromes). A mildly fatigued copy, used but nothing in particular. Au$350

A splendid compendium of modern advertising layout and typography; there are examples from Europe and America but fortunately the bulk is Japanese. Both the book cover and the slipcase are pretty smart, the slipcase in particular. The 'AD' design on the cover of the book is a direct link to the Art Directors Club, presumably this is a forerunner of the current Tokyo Art Directors Club.

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Interplanetary travel

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. Brushed inscription on the last blank leaf. Edges a touch chipped, title and last leaf browned; a remarkably good copy of a vulnerable book. Au$6000

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.
This has never been translated and until very recently there was virtually nothing written in English and very little in Japanese on Nukina and his novel. Michal Daliot-Bul published two papers on this novel in 2021 and 22, Voyage to Innumerable Star Worlds, which are helpful but unfortunately written in Academic. A vague reference I found elsewhere to artificial life is expanded: on the dystopian planet of untrammelled technology and capitalism work will soon be done by artificially created organic humans - 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. Daliot-Bul also claims this as almost certainly the first utopian anarchist novel of Japan. The reason - she posits - for it's failure and disappearance.
This is volume one of what was meant to be a trilogy - containing five chapters - there is no more. At the end is a teasing hint of what chapters six to twelve might contain but we are unlikely to ever know for sure. 

I believe that last illustration is of a cop chasing a perp.

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