NAKANO, Kan.

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Shisei gyokuhen wakun taisei ("The Jade Chapters, noting the Four Tones and Japanese Readings"). First edition of this Chinese-Japanese dictionary. It was based on the famous Jade Chapters (Chinese: Yupian) and contains over 28,000 characters, their Japanese translations, various readings, and definitions. This edition focuses on the tones used when pronouncing Chinese words, indicated by the positions of small dots around each character.This dictionary is organized by radical, increasing in stroke number volume by volume. Each character is written in a box, surrounded by its Sinitic reading to the right, Japanese translation below, and a rhyming character to the left. Each character also has a small dot at one of its corners, indicating the tone of the Chinese reading. The headnotes contain a longer definition of most of the words, including compounds and variant meanings. Provenance: from the library of the Japan Society, with the society's gilt logo blocked onto the custom folding box and its shelf labels on the spine. Founded in 1891 at premises in Hanover Square, the Japan Society of London (the final two words of the name later dropped) has been at the centre of British appreciation of Japanese history and culture ever since, hosting lectures, royal visitors, and curating the Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits book series. The catalogue notes from the Japan Society's library are loosely inserted.

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