Author: Heidosai Shujin & Ryuu Joshi.
Title: [Sekai Ichiran].
Description: Tokyo, Izumiya Ichibee 1872 [Meiji 5]. Two volumes 235x155mm, publisher's wrappers with title labels; 48;52pp on double folded leaves and a double page colour world map, smaller woodcut maps and illustrations throughout. Some worming in the first volume, only of note in a few leaves and hardly terminal; pretty good. ¶ 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. 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 - London has become Venice on the Thames and poor Paris, without an Eiffel Tower to centre on, is just a railway works yard. Worldcat finds only the National Diet Library entry.

Keywords: geography travel social history language linguistics illustration calligraphy lettering writing c19th Japan Asia maps meiji