A malicious fraud
Fukuzawa Yukichi (but not). 西洋各國事情 [Seiyo Kakkoku Jijo]. (First series & 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.
