OZAKI, Masayoshi.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Gunsho ichiran ("The Handbook of Japanese Sources"). Second edition, published one month after the first, of one of the earliest systematic bibliographies produced in Japan. It contains over 1,700 titles and enjoyed such popularity that examples have been located with 56 different publishers' colophons. This copy was likely donated to the Japan Society by Thomas Wright Blakiston, as his calling card is loosely inserted.Ozaki Masayoshi (1755-1827) was a scholar and historian who studied under Okuda Shosai (1729-1807). In this work he writes about 1,077 printed books and 652 manuscripts, dividing them into categories such as history, myth, records, textbooks, fiction, diaries, poetry, and geography.Thomas Wright Blakiston (1832-1891) was an explorer who travelled in Canada and China, before becoming a prominent naturalist in Japan. He was the first to notice that animals in Hokkaido and Honshu had ancestors from different parts of Asia, establishing a zoogeographical boundary between the two islands. His set then made its way to the library of the Japan Society. 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. A catalogue card has been tipped to the front pastedown of volume I.

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