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>Yves. [ie Yves Zuber]. Aviation Sans Formules. Paris, Librairie du XXe Siecle [1909]. Octavo publisher's colour printed wrapper (marked); 72pp, 13 plates (one colour litho, most of the others photo plates), decorative vignettes and diagrams through the text. Au$350

An odd and charming book: the principles of aviation are explained in a two act play, not something you come across that often. The play is followed by a chronology and dictionary of terms. The colour plate illustrates a couple of simple mechanisms you can make at home.

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>Aviation Game. Helder's Vlieg-Spel. Zwolle, Helder's Biscuits [1909?]. 44x64cm colour litho game on paper. Folded and a touch rumpled; rather good. With a list of the biscuit range down the right side. Au$475

A splendid race game featuring plenty of bumps, crashes and engine failures and the earliest forms of the monoplane. Did the monoplane in the centre panel exist? 1909 was the big year for air shows and game makers weren't slow so 1909 is a sensible date to put on this. I can find only one record of another copy of this - in the Seville collection - and this, I say humbly, is a much better copy.

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Aviation game. Verkade's Melbourne Race Spel. Zaandam, Verkade's Fabrieken [1934]. 43x62cm printed both sides on paper, the colour race game on one side, monochrome promotional material with a couple of illustrations on the other. Folded as issued. A little rumpled, pretty good. With the printed playing pieces - three trios of planes ready to be cut out - down the right margin. Au$225

A racing game following a fanciful path of the 1934 MacRobertson Air Race from Mildenhall to Melbourne. The heroes here are the biscuit maker sponsored Dutch team who won on handicap. Trove finds one copy, dated 1935 but a competition on the back calls for entries before the 1st of January.

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Aviation game. Vliegspel Holland - Indie per Pelikaan door A. Viruly. Erdal [1934]. 42x57cm light card; colour printed game on one side, monochrome text and illustrations on the other. Folded, minor signs of use, a pretty good copy. Au$125

A Dutch racing game produced by the wax and polish makers Erdal celebrating the Amsterdam to Bandoeng and back again flight of the Fokker Pelikaan, a record making round trip taking Christmas mail and returning with New Year mail in 1933. On the back is a description by Viruly of the plane and flight.

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Aviation game. Pilot. n.p. Royco [195-?]. 54x78cm colour printed game on paper. The playing pieces - ready to be cut out - down the right margin. Au$65

A Dutch round the world racing game published by Royco soup company and given for two packets or labels of their Groentesoep - vegetable soup. What I hope was a different company produced Royco aviation lubricants. There are several opportunities in various parts of the world for an encounter with flying saucers.

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>Bicycle Game. Wieler Sport-Spel. Amsterdam, lith. Faddegon & Co for J. Viegler [c1885?]. 65x49cm colour litho game on paper. Edges a touch chipped, a small hole; pretty good. Au$225

A Dutch racing game and one of the more charming I've seen so far.

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Paper Game. Het Vermakelijk Harlekijnspel. Amsterdam, J. Viegler [188-?]. 57x43cm colour litho game on paper. A rather good copy. Au$100

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Tram Game. Tramway Spel. Amsterdam, J. Viegler [c1880]. 435x575mm colour litho game on paper. A rather good copy. Au$200

A Dutch racing game presumably co-produced with the cocoa maker van Houten. Amsterdam's trams began running in 1875 and you can be sure the game makers were at work within minutes. There is a version of this without the advertisements on the trams - which are obvious additions when you compare them - published by Ellerman Harms; doubtless Viegler got the rights and made a deal with van Houten. It wasn't long before writers were complaining about the disfiguring surfeit of advertising on trams all round the world.

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>Monkey Game. Het Apenspel. n.p. [188-?]. 61x46cm colour litho game on paper. Edges a bit ragged and some repaired clean tears. Au$150

A Dutch racing game for devotees of monkeys - and who isn't. It seems counter intuitive these days but the object is to get into the zoo.

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>OKAMATO, K.S. [Konseki]. Ancient and Modern Various Usages of Tokio Japan. 古今百風吾妻餘波. Tokyo, Morito 1885. 23x15cm publisher's wrapper with printed title label (wrapper somewhat grubby, label chipped and another old label on the front); 62 double folded leaves, colour woodblock illustrations throughout, one double page, three full page. Used but a most acceptable copy. Au$900

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

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Imaginary Voyage. The History of Bullanabee and Clinkataboo, Two Recently Discovered Islands in the Pacific. London: printed for Longman &c 1828. Duodecimo in sixes, publisher's cloth backed boards, printed paper spine label; 216pp. Endpapers spotted but an outstanding, fresh copy. Au$3,000

A rare utopia. The Islands of Bullanabee and Clinkataboo, though close to Hawaii, remain unknown to European navigators but have been trading for centuries with Japan, whose religion the islanders had embraced. As Japan was even more a mystery than Hawaii and other Pacific cultures this all allows a curious mix of supposition drawn from Asia and elsewhere, and imagination. This imaginary Japanese religion bears a remarkable likeness to Catholicism with its idol worship, the priesthood's love of gold and the supremacy of the head of the church, the sole link of communication to the Goddess Verginee. From the tyranny of this religion comes strife and civil war of course, until sense prevailed and the priests of Verginee were expelled. The cunning and cupidity of the priesthood was relentess though and trouble returns. Again, at last, sense prevails and though devotees of Verginee may persist in their worship they are wisely barred from holding any office of power. And yet again the Verginees wormed their way inside the defences of the too tolerant islanders, this during the author's two year stay, and "in consequence of these sudden and dangerous changes in the affairs of the islands I took the opportunity of leaving them and of leaving them clandestinely for; as all liberality of sentiment was gone and the introduction of a new sort of punishment was in contemplation ... I deemed it prudent to make my escape".

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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 is undoubtedly a colonial binding. Au$350

First edition. Mrs 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 autobiographical, based on her own family, and 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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BRONSON, M. [Miles]. A Dictionary of Assamese and English. First edition. Sibsagor, American Baptist Mission Press 1867. Octavo contemporary calf (a corner repaired, some wear to spine ends but all firm); viii,609pp, with a switch in numbering between the dictionary and the appendix. Philologist John Avery's copy given after his death to Yale who discarded it as a duplicate (bookplate on the front endpaper) after which it went to Tabor College in Kansas (an inoffensive stamp on the title) and from there into the wide world. Au$1,200

A linguistic hero of Assam, Bronson led the battle against the imposition of Bengali as the official language and the Assam Sahitya Sabha, in 2012, held a year long programme of celebrations of the 200th anniversary of his birth. His dictionary, the first Assamese dictionary, was the culmination of thirty years work and 800 copies were printed, a surprisingly small number compared to many Pacific missionary presses where thousands of copies of books were printed for comparatively tiny populations.

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>Hashizume Kanichi. 世界商売往来 [Sekai Shobai Orai - literally World Trade Traffic]. Tokyo, Seikichi 1871 [Meiji 4]. 180x120mm publisher's wrapper (a bit rumpled); 26 double folded leaves; one full page and numerous small illustrations throughout. Title page on yellow with a man operating some mysterious, to me, mechanism. Au$385

First edition of this handy bilingual vocabulary of world trade giving the English, with Japanese explanations, of a wide range of terms, quantities, goods, professions, and so on. I used to think the bibliography of Hashizume's handbooks on foreign trade was straightforward: three, this, the first in 1871 following it up with two more in 1873. Since then I've discovered variants and variants of variants. There are some of the expected amusing errors in spelling and typography but far fewer than in the later books.

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>英字訓蒙図解 [Eiji Kunmo Zukai or Ei Kuno Zukai depending on the transcriber]. Kyoto, Ogawa Kinsuke 1871 (Meiji 4). 225x155mm publisher's wrapper with title label; woodblock illustrations throughout. Some worming and a marginal stain, neat repairs to the first few margins. A very decent copy with its colour illustrated outer wrapper - repeating the title page, this smudged and rumpled but complete and untorn. Au$750

A rare and most appealing illustrated introduction to English. To an extent unseen in any other non-western culture faced with the colonial ambitions of the west the Japanese controlled their own re-education. They were not showered with unwanted primers by missionaries and other pious businessmen. They produced, printed and determinedly digested their own, using whatever sources they could find, the occasional hired expert and their imagination.
The more I look at books like these, which were assiduously studied, the more I wonder how anyone learnt any English. How many Japanese went to their graves calling a camera a desk and hoping for an opportunity to introduce 'pluckant' into conversation? Leaving aside errors, books like these make no sense as tools to me but tens, hundreds of thousands of Japanese students set out with these as guides on the road of bunmei kaika - government sponsored enlightenment and civilization - and got there way faster than anyone should have. In fact the more I think about it the more I wonder how anyone learns any language.
* Click on the picture to see a couple more.

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The Rajah of Kolhapoor. Diary of the Late Rajah of Kolhapoor, during his visit to Europe in 1870. Edited by Capt. Edward W. West. London, Smith Elder 1872. Octavo green morocco by Mansell, elaborately decorated, with the arms of the Maharaja on the front cover; chromolitho portrait, a mounted litho portrait and a mounted woodbury type. Some scattered spots; a handsome, fresh copy. With a printed presentation leaf finished by hand presenting the book to Saville Lumley - John Savile Lumley the diplomat, not the younger illustrator. Au$500

The special presentation issue of a book that was doubtless a privately funded production in the first place; the uncoloured litho portrait doesn't seem to be included in the more prosaic issue.
Upon the Raja's succession in 1866, at the age of 16, West was appointed his governor and the first thing he did was remove him from the "pernicious moral atmosphere ever to be found in a native Palace." His education then seems to consist of learning billiards, croquet and a bit of cricket; he was given "selections of books" and encouraged to read newspapers. Thus prepared they set off to see England, the first reigning Hindu prince to do so, in 1870. Having conquered England, socially, he died in Florence and, after some fast politicking to sidestep Florentine law, was cremated on the banks of the Arno. The woodburytype is a portrait of a splendidly befrocked but anxious looking child, his eight year old successor.

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>Catalogue - Brushes. F. Stocklassa, Stockholm. Priskurant. Aktiebolaget F. Stocklassas Borst-och Penselfabrik. Stockholm, the company 1923. Octavo publisher's printed wrapper, cord bound (the cord broken); [3],140,[1]pp, 70 chromolithograph plates. A rather good copy. Au$450

I'm a latecomer to brush catalogues; I saw my first colour plate brush catalogue only a few years ago. Until then I could take or leave the average brush catalogue. The earliest of the few chromolitho brush catalogues I've seen - most European, one English - is about 1900 and the second world war put an end to them and I wonder at the tradition of these elaborate and expensive catalogues so far into the 20th century; competition presumably - but who started it? Stocklassa offers every brush you can imagine and a few you can't: artist and decorators of course, household cleaning, bottles (and baby bottles), cars and bicycles, toothbrushes, wire brushes, some spiffy fluffy dusters and colourful feather dusters, and with more than a few I have no clue to their use.

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>Arthur Shaw & Co. Willenhall. Illustrated List of Locks and Keys [cover title]. The company [Wolverhampton printed, 190-?]. Octavo publisher's flush cut cloth titled on the front. [2],84pp, profusely illustrated including four pages in colour of china and glass door furniture. A perforated stub at the beginning doubtless held a title leaf to be removed, as was common with catalogues sent to agents and retailers. Au$165

A good, useful priced catalogue with a lot of handsome locks, keys and door furniture for all occasions. The Colonial Rim and Colonial Drawback locks seem near identical to others but they are cheaper so presumably they were lighter and flimsier. I guess colonials had less to protect.

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>RUSSELL, J. Scott. The Modern System of Naval Architecture. London, Day & Son [1865]. Three volumes large atlas folio modern half calf and cloth; large folding plate as a frontispiece in volume 1 (the text volume) and 167 plates, most double page or larger, some very large indeed, in the two volumes of plates. Title and following two leaves of the text volume creased, miniscule blindstamps in the margins and creeping dust into the margins of the plates in volume three (easily cleaned away by anyone with patience); two plates misfolded. In all a very good, remarkably good, copy. Au$9,500

The Great Eastern of naval architecture books I read somewhere and true enough except that Russell's book has a happier history than his ship. Published at 40 guineas this was certainly a massive venture and of course offers an impressive record of the Great Eastern among the wide range of ships described and illustrated (these include plates of a screw steamer for the Australian trade of which five were built). Despite Russell's impressive list of achievements he never quite attained or held onto the success he probably deserved. Apparently this was largely due to the fact that he was 'not quite a gentleman'.

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WALLIS, Arthur E. The Cruise of the "Ellengowan". Sydney, New Century 1924. Octavo publisher's illustrated wrapper (used, with a crease in the front and a short tear, without loss, in the back). Natural browning of the paper but not a bad copy of this vulnerable book. Au$200

This is not a novel published for the bookstall market, as it appears to be, but a lively, often amusing account of Wallis' ill conceived 1892 voyage to New Guinea in the schooner Ellengowan in search of cedar, adventure and trade, financed relunctantly by his father, a Black Wattle Bay timber merchant. Ill conceived in that the young Wallis was fired up by the assurances of one William Koran that he could lead him to vast quantities of cedar - Koran abandoned ship before they left Sydney when he was told they would be calling at Port Moresby. Is it necessary to add that Koran's cedar did not exist?
I'm a bit confused by the history of the Ellengowan. A Missionary Society steamer Ellengowan figures in the maritime history of New Guinea and northern Australia but it was sunk, twice, by the time Wallis bought the Missionary Society schooner Ellengowan. Presumably the missionaries liked the name and re-used it often.

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CROUCH, Archer P. On a Surf-Bound Coast; or, Cable-Laying in the African Tropics. London, Sampson Low 1887. Octavo publishers illustrated cloth; xii,338pp and publisher's list. An excellent, bright and unopened copy. Au$300

The first of two books recording the cable-laying expedition in the ships Dacia, Silvertown and Buccaneer down the west coast of Africa in 1885; this describing the start from England and finishing with departure from Accra. The rest of the journey was covered in 'Glimpses of Feverland' (1889). Crouch was a cable engineer and this seems to be his first literary effort, but once started he didn't stop and published a number of novels and miscellaneous pieces over the next forty years.

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>MAUNDER, E. Walter. The Indian Eclipse 1898. Report of the expeditions organized by the British Astronomical Association to observe the solar eclipse of 1898, January 22. London, Hazell Watson &c 1899. Tall octavo publisher's illustrated black cloth blocked in gilt (and a touch of red); xii,172pp, numerous photo illustrations, illustrations and diagrams through the text. Stamp of the Newcastle Upon Tyne Astronomical Society on the front fly. They were lent the book (according to a pencil note) by Lawrence Richardson in 1904 when the Society was founded, presumably they didn't just pinch it. Au$300

An attractive book; chatty and personable travel adventures interspersed with technical reports and illustrated in much the same way. The Astronomical Society's expeditions (this was their second) were organised on 'Pickwickian' principles - volunteers paying their own way - which meant mixed teams of professionals and dedicated amateurs: men, women and children (or youths at least). Photography, of course, played a major part and I have read elsewhere (not in this book) that this was the expedition on which the Rev J.M. Bacon took the first moving pictures of an eclipse but the film mysteriously disappeared.

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[HOLCROFT, Thomas]. VINCENT, William. A Plain and Succinct Narrative of the Late Riots and Disturbances in the Cities of London and Westminster ... particulars of the burning of Newgate, the King's Bench, the Fleet ... with an account of the commitment of Lord George Gordon to the Tower, and anecdotes of his life ... by William Vincent, of Gray's Inn. London, printed for Fielding and Walker 1780. Octavo later cloth (spine tips worn); [2],62pp. A little browned at each end, quite a good copy. Au$600

First edition of Thomas Holcroft's pseudonymous account of the Gordon riots, rushed into print within days of the end of the riots and a document central to all students of the riots. Modern scholars seem agreed it was work for hire, no forecast of his later radicalism, and for the most part it does reflect the indignant eye of conservative authority - it was after all written by a supposed lawyer rather than an autodidact shoemaker's son newly making his name as a novelist - but touches of skepticism surface here and there and a few figures get a brief sarcastic tongue-lashing. It also seems agreed that the anecdotes of Gordon pinned on to the end aren't Holcroft's and that he was unhappy with them. It was succesful enough, three editions appeared before the end of the year, and it's known that Dickens owned an annotated copy and used it in Barnaby Rudge but then, anybody interested in the riots has to use it. The text has been reprinted and reproduced often enough but this first edition does appear to be a truly scarce little book.

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[Peters]. LONG, W. Arnold. Bobbie Peters A Chosen Vessel. A story of a deformed half-caste aboriginal native worker, who was made meet for the master's use. Melbourne, S. John Bacon for the Aborigines Inland Mission [1944?]. Octavo publisher's colour printed wrappers with peekaboo cut out (photo of Bobbie Peters beneath - in an earthen urn, short tear around the edge); 32pp, photo ills. Owner's stamps on title, a pretty good copy. Au$75

'Treasure in an Earthen Vessel' (the cover title) it is not. An appalling piece of claptrap and dubious on every level -particularly the basic facts - but a treasure of sorts still. The title here leaves out his alcoholism; there must be only one step further down the disadvantaged ladder to go.

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Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant. In the High Court of Justice. Queen's Bench Division, June 18th, 1877. The Queen v. Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant. (Specially Reported). London, Freethought Publishing [1877]. Octavo publisher's cloth (worn and marked); [2],ii,324pp and eight page publisher's list, two mounted photos - portraits of Bradlaugh and Besant. Front endpaper removed, a printed portrait of an older Annie Besant pasted onto the first blank; pencilled marginalia; a down at heels but not irredeemable copy - most Freethought publications of this period are now irredeemable - with the 1878 inscription of Melbourne journalist John Howlett Ross. Au$100

You don't need to read many paragraphs into this transcript of the trial before a sense of helpless outrage at the casual and patronising brutality of a British court at work sets in. It's easy to imagine sympathetic readers muttering and grinding their teeth before the jury has been sworn in when the Lord Chief Justice appeals to the prosecutor on a point of law to quash a motion by Bradlaugh. Before the prosecutor, the Solicitor General no less, has finished his opening address the judge is guiding him to refine his language to avoid chancing an aquittal; that is, he sets out the prosecution's case in more effective terms. I get the impression the whole thing would have reached the result of a guilty verdict, with six months and a two hundred pound fine for each, more smoothly if the prosecutor has stayed out of it. It is clear though that the Lord Chief Justice quite admired and favoured Besant and Bradlaugh by the end of the case. They did win on appeal.
The prosecution for publishing obscene literature - in this case an aged and demure pamphlet on birth control - was purposely brought about as an act of defiant testing of the law by Besant and Bradlaugh but they seem shocked by the sentence and this ends with a swift verbal dance - not quite backpedalling - to keep themselves out of prison until they can mount their appeal.

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Toowoomba. Toowoomba. Queensland's Mountain Resort. Information for Tourists. Industries of Downs. Toowoomba Tourist Bureau 1946. Octavo publisher's printed wrapper; 106pp including quite a few adverts, photo illustrations folding plan. A bit used but decent enough. Au$40

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Tasmania. Stereoscope card: Elizabeth Street and the Union Bank of Australia. Hobart, Tasmania. Keystone [190-?]. Stereo images on printed card (89x178mm); printed description on the back. In fine condition. Au$30

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PRADT, M. De . [Dominique Georges Frederic]. Les Trois Ages des Colonies, ou de leur etat passe, present et a venir. Paris, Giguet 1801-02. Three volumes octavo contemporary speckled calf (surface nibbling on the sides). An excellent, fresh, crisp and handsome set. Au$750

First edition. This was not a period to argue against the idea of empire in France and Pradt is a notable exception to the rule of silence. Perhaps this was seen as a clever polemical spanner to be insinuated into the works of the English, Dutch, Portugese and Spanish; certainly it did Pradt no harm. He thrived under Napoleon and momentarily did even better come the restoration, until his attempts to curry the favour of all sides backfired. He was nothing if not a sleaze; once he was sure Napoleon was truly finished he published his claim that he was "the one man too many" that brought Napoleon down.
A couple of historians have argued about his influence on Jefferson and Adams and by descent the Monroe Doctrine but he won greatest favour among the liberationists of South America, apparently Bolivar awarded him a pension paid from his own funds. This is the first and most ambitious of many works that chewed over the nature and future of colonial power over the next thirty years and while his ideal outcome changed through the years his tenet remained the same: the independence of colonies was inevitable, desirable and beneficial for Europe.

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>Ogawa Usen [also known as Soju Usen]. 草汁漫画 [Soju Manga]. Tokyo, Hidaka Yurindo 1908 (Meiji 41). 255x190mm publisher's printed wrapper (some wear, spine chipped); [6],136;[4],[8]pp; woodcut illustrations throughout, a few colour, most printed in sienna. Originally stapled, the staples have perished; a used but very decent copy in a modern chitsu. Au$1,450

First edition of Usen's first book; a facsimile was published in the seventies. A lively collection of pictures, seemingly naive at times but as Hillier said of a later book - Sangusha (1912) - "The childlike naivete of the original sketches is ... actually the acme of sophistication ... the artist is as elliptical as the poet." (Hillier; The Art of the Japanese Book). Usen hadn't yet attained the fame that brought the quality of printing his later work has but he makes up for that here with humour and imagination.
Usen studied western painting before starting his career as a newspaper and magazine illustrator and is among the more interesting of the generation of artists born and educated with the Meiji, soaked in both the foreign and the nationalistic reaction to the foreign, and determined not to step backwards into regurgitating tradition nor become mimics of the west. Some of his late work seems refined to the point of kitsch to me but when sleek expensive art journals publish articles in English on the hitherto neglected anarchistic aims of Usen's early work we know that he has truly arrived.
OCLC finds no copy of this outside the National Diet Library.
*Click on the picture to see some more.

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[HOBSON, Benjamin]. 博物新編 [Hakubutsu Shinpen]. Tokyo, 1874 (Meiji 7). Three volumes, 255x173mm, publisher's yellow wrappers with title labels (a bit smudged); wood cut illustrations in all three volumes. Rather good with the original printed outer wrapper loosely inserted and untorn. Au$300

Third edition, it seems, of this adaptation of Hobson's Bo Wu Xin Bian first published in Shanghai in 1855 and in Japan in 1864. Hobson wrote a few primers on science and medicine for the Chinese which were then adapted by the Japanese. This covers physics in the first volume - including such things as optics, electricity and hydraulics; astronomy in the second; and zoology in the third.

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CLEGG, T.B. [Thomas Bailey]. The Wilderness. London & NY, John Lane 1907. Octavo publisher's cloth. Minor signs of use, a rather good copy. Au$200

Only edition of this melodramatic Australian thriller; apparently the American issue judging by the binding. We jump from the orphaned girl in imagined Golden City - a gold town grown into a city - to the embittered doctor playing with poisons and dissecting Kanakas in Queensland cane fields but we know their fates cross somewhere soon.
Given that Clegg was Ballarat born is it safe to presume it, rather than Bendigo, is the model for Golden City? Clegg was a journalist, lawyer and magistrate who in the eighties had investigated the penal system in New Caledonia and the indentured labour industry in Queensland. New Caledonia found its way into his 'The Bishop's Scapegoat' (1908) and the cane fields into this.

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>Otsuki Genkan. 西音發微 [Seion Hatsubi]. n.p. [182-?] 26x18cm original wrapper; 3;31;7 double folded leaves (ie 82pp). Some worming, only of moment on a couple of leaves where a couple of characters are effected. In a modern chitzu. Au$275

An extraordinarily exact manuscript copy of this pioneering study of western pronunciation by one of the more eminent scholars of Dutch studies. The Seion Hatsubi was published somewhere around 1826 and this is obviously contemporary. Our copyist has skipped the publisher's advertisements at the ends but has otherwise done a job that needs more than a cursory glance to discern from the printed book, even to the extent of reproducing the seals at the beginning and end of the preface. There is a fine tradition of manuscript copies of rare or supressed books in Japan but this is the most exact facsimile I've seen. There is an inscription and small seal inside the back cover that may well identify the transcriber but I can't read it.
*Click on the picture to see a couple more.

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>Hashizume Kanichi. 続々世界商売往来 [Zokuzoku Sekai Shobai Orai]. Tokyo 1873? 180x120mm publisher's wrapper with title label (a bit used); 26 double folded leaves; one double page illustration and several small illustrations through the text, title page framed in a blue barrel. A nice copy. Au$350

First edition? of this handy bilingual vocabulary of world trade giving the English, with Japanese explanations, of a wide range of terms, quantities, goods, professions, and so on. Hashizume, who specialised in handbooks on trade and on foreign languages, produced, I think, maybe four of these guides for merchants with similar titles; the first in 1871 following it up with at least two more in 1873. There are more than three but the variants in copies ostensibly of the same book make it all a bit confusing. Curious about this one is that the English text has been cut in wood, it isn't type. There are several endearing spelling mistakes, mishapen or reversed letters and odd truncations but more puzzling than these are some of the chosen terms for Japanese traders to learn. Sublemate of mercary [sic] makes some sense, as do gloziers, hornessmakers and portruit-painters - but how often did anyone have to discuss velocipedes and grave-diggers?

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>Heidosai Shujin & Ryuu Joshi. 世界一覧 [Sekai Ichiran]. Tokyo, Izumiya Ichibee 1872 [Meiji 5]. Two volumes 235x155mm, publisher's wrappers with title labels (a label apparently removed from the bottom of the first wrapper); 48;52pp on double folded leaves and a double page colour world map bordered with flags, smaller woodcut maps and illustrations throughout. A rather good pair. Au$850

A beguiling book, both as a digest of the world and as an essay in digesting exotic western typefaces and scripts; in digesting all things western really, from language to image. Curious that by 1872 Japan had plenty of pictures of the outside world to study and while the maps seem pretty accurate the views are still like imaginings worked up from descriptions. The pyramids seem to be in a jungle - perhaps the artist couldn't imagine desert and thought his model incomplete - and poor Paris, without an Eiffel Tower to centre on, is just a railway works yard.
Is the text an adaptation from Chinese? I can't find any such reference and I can't find another copy of this outside the National Diet Library.
*Click on the picture to see a couple more.

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