The Book in Japan: A Cultural History from the Beginnings to the Nineteenth Century

by Peter Kornicki

Overview

New in paperback.

Of related interest:
A History of Writing in Japan, by Christopher Seeley

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780824823375
Publisher:	University of Hawaii Press, The
Publication date:	12/01/2000
Edition description:	PBK ED
Pages:	520
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 1.05(d)

About the Author

Peter Kornicki is reader in Japanese history and bibliography, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge, and fellow of the British Academy.

Table of Contents

	Preface	ix
	Conventions	xiii
	Chronologies	xvi
	List of illustrations	xvii
	Introduction	1
1	The history of the book and japan	8
1.1	Books and the state	11
1.2	Books and the colonial experience	17
1.3	The advent and consequences of print	20
1.4	Calligraphy and the block-printed book	26
1.5	Literacy and reading	30
2	Books as material objects	39
2.1	Paper and the roll	40
2.2	Forms of the book	43
2.3	Printing and the book	47
2.4	Illustration and the arts of the book	56
2.5	Printed maps, serial publications and ephemera	60
2.6	Conservation	74
3	Manuscript culture	78
3.1	Manuscripts in the Nara period	78
3.2	Manuscripts up to 1600	87
3.3	Manuscripts in the Tokugawa period	99
4	Printed Books	112
4.1	Printing before 1600	114
4.1.1	The Hyakumanto darani	114
4.1.2	The Heian, Kamakura and Muromachi periods	117
4.2	Movable type: the early phase	125
4.2.1	The Jesuit mission press	125
4.2.2	Korean movable type	128
4.2.3	Japanese movable type	129
4.3	Blockprinting in the Tokugawa and early Meiji periods	136
4.3.1	Commercial publishing	136
4.3.2	Official publishing	143
4.3.3	Private publishing	149
4.3.4	Reprints of non-Japanese works	153
4.4	Later movable type and copperplate	158
4.4.1	Wooden movable type	158
4.4.2	Western-style movable type	163
4.4.3	Copperplate	166
5	The book trade in the Tokugawa period	169
5.1	Publishing and bookselling	170
5.1.1	Bookshops and publishers	170
5.1.2	Production and the guilds	179
5.1.3	Sales and prices 1	184
5.1.4	Marketing and advertising	187
5.2	The growth of the publishing trade	192
5.2.1	Publishing in Kyoto	194
5.2.2	Publishing in Osaka	197
5.2.3	Publishing in Edo	199
5.2.4	Publishing in the provinces	205
5.3	The publishers	207
5.3.1	Murakami Kanbee	208
5.3.2	Suwaraya Mohee	210
5.3.3	Eirakuya Toshiro	213
5.3.4	Obiya Ihee	215
5.3.5	Tsutaya Juzaburo	218
5.3.6	Kawachiya Mohee	221
6	Authors and readers	223
6.1	Authorship	223
6.1.1	The evolution of the author	225
6.1.2	Royalties	239
6.1.3	Copyright	242
6.2	Readership	251
6.2.1	Readers and reading before 1600	251
6.2.2	Readers and reading after 1600	258
6.2.3	Literacy	269
7	Transmission	277
7.1	Transmission to Japan	277
7.1.1	Pre-Tokugawa imports from China	278
7.1.2	Pre-Tokugawa imports from Korea and Parhae	293
7.1.3	Later imports of Chinese and Korean books	296
7.1.4	Imports of European and American books	300
7.2	Transmission from Japan	306
7.2.1	Exports of Japanese books to China and Korea	306
7.2.2	Exports of Japanese books to the West	313
8	Censorship	320
8.1	Censorship before the Tokugawa period	321
8.2	Censorship in the Tokugawa period	324
8.2.1	The exclusion of Christianity	325
8.2.2	Secular censorship and the book trade	331
8.2.3	Calendars	353
8.3	Censorship in the early Meiji period	358
9	Libraries and Collectors	363
9.1	Libraries and book collecting before 1600	364
9.1.1	Nara and Heian periods	364
9.1.2	Kamakura and Muromachi periods	371
9.2	Libraries and book collecting after 1600	376
9.2.1	Ieyasu, Yoshimune and the Bakufu Library	376
9.2.2	Institutional libraries	384
9.2.3	Other libraries and collections	388
9.2.4	Commercial lending libraries	391
9.3	Ownership	398
9.4	The Meiji transition and modern collections	406
10	Catalogues and Bibliography	413
10.1	Catalogues and categories	414
10.1.1	Pre-Tokugawa	416
10.1.2	Tokugawa period	427
10.2	Bibliography in the Tokugawa period	437
	Afterword	446
	Appendix	450
	Glossary	455
	Abbreviations	457
	Bibliography	461
	Index	478

Editorial Reviews

Superbly researched and handsomely produced.... A landmark in Western language historiography on books in Eastern Asia. It ranks in importance with T. S. Carter's The Invention of Printing in China and Its Spread Westward, which startled the world of book-lovers some seventy years ago.

Libraries & Culture

The ten chapters of this exemplary monograph cover every major aspect of the book in traditional Japan: its place in Japanese history; books as material objects; manuscript cultures; printing; the Edo period book trade; authors and readers; importation and exportation; censorship; libraries and collectors; and bibliographic catalogues.... A handsome and beautifully organized handbook that is sure to inform and stimulate research for many years to come.

Journal of Asian Studies

Primarily, but not entirely, summarizing and translating from the massive Japanese literature on books there, Kornicki (Japanese history and bibliography, U. of Cambridge) seeks to widen the knowledge beyond the technical specialty and provide students of Japanese history, ideas, and literature with an initial guide. The 1998 edition was published by Brill in Leiden, The Netherlands. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

'Kornicki has given us a handsome and beautifully organized handbook that is sure to inform and stimulate research for many years to come.'
J. Marshall Unger, The Journal of Asian Studies.
'Kornicki's work is a landmark in Western language historiography on books in Eastern Asia. It ranks in importance with T.S. Carter's The Invention of Printing in China and Its Spread Westward, which startled the world of book-lovers some seventy years ago.'
William R. Braisted, Library & Culture, 1999.
'…Kornicki's scholarship is exemplary and his contribution enormous, even signalling a new era in the study of Japanese culture. The Book in Japan adds a new and more substantial basement to the already half-built edifice of Japanese cultural study.'
Charles Shiro Inouye, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 2000.

From the Publisher