Sunday Chewing Gum.

[Sande Chiuingamu].

Yamazaki Seika Kenkyujo [193-?]. Colour lithograph poster 56x19cm. Some minor creasing and natural browning of the paper, rather good with the original metal strips and loop.
¶ A shop poster for Sunday Chewing Gam (sic) against an unexpected wintery background. I guess chewing gum really has no season.

Richard Neylon, BooksellerProfessional seller

Book number: 10227

Keywords: graphic commerical art advertising posters food confectionary c20th Japan modernism

Japan - gymnastics.

[Taiso Kyohan - Manual of Gymnastics].

Ministry of War, 1884 (Meiji 17). 150x110mm in what appear to be original cloth backed boards (spine a touch nibbled); 37 double folded leaves (ie 74pp) and 73 full page illustrations (5 folding) numbered to 32 with several bis. A little worming, nothing notable, and a couple of small stains; a quite good fresh copy. Possibly lithographed throughout.
¶ The Japanese first got in French experts on military physical training in the late 1860s and the first Japanese book I've been able to trace was a translation of part of an 1847 manual the French visitors brought with them. That is I've traced mention of it, not the book itself. This manual also has the look of coming from a French manual but, being light on in French gymnastic manuals of the mid nineteenth century here, I don't know which one. Certainly it models the fine mustachios that became de rigueur for dashing Japanese officers. The Taiso Kyohan apparently also became the model for gymnastics in secondary schools as the idea of physical education was introduced into Japan. There were many editions of the Taiso Kyohan, presumably updated and changed as the decades went on but I'm unable to trace any copy this early in a library catalogue.

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Book number: 9261

Keywords: Japan progress c19th sports gymnastics health education military moustaches Asia fad reform meiji

Suzuki Gyosui.

[Kasei Tanken Dai Sugoroku].

Tokyo, Nihon Shonen 1931 (Showa 6). Colour broadside 54x78cm. A little browning and a couple of spots; rather good.
¶ The new year gift from the boys' magazine Nihon Shonen is a splendid, faithful record of these Japanese boys' expedition to Mars. Artist of many parts, Suzuki had accompanied some intrepid boys on a ferocious zeppelin tour of the world the year before this and made a specialty of battle scenes in later years. Before this he produced gentle night scene woodcuts.

Richard Neylon, BooksellerProfessional seller

Book number: 10599

Keywords: sugoroku graphic art paper games pastimes c20th Japan modernism children juvenile illustration science fiction space mars

Shibuya Shigeo & Suzuki Gyosui.

[Tsuepperin Sekai Isshu Sugoroku].

Tokyo, Nihon Shonen 1930 (Showa 5). Colour broadsheet 54x79cm. Minor signs of use, a little rumpled; a rather good copy with playing pieces - propellors - in the bottom margin. On the back is a duller game about athletics in red, white and blue.
¶ The new year gift from the boys' magazine Nihon Shonen, this is an heroic, an epic, zeppelin journey around a world that existed somewhere in the minds of writers and illustrators for boys. Every step, every part of nature, every being, is a peril, a hazard to be fought and beaten. Girls win by accepting, boys win by taking a cudgel, or even better a machine gun, to everything in their path.

Richard Neylon, BooksellerProfessional seller

Book number: 10339

Keywords: sugoroku graphic art paper games pastimes c20th Japan modernism children juvenile illustration

HADDON, A.C. & James HORNELL.

Canoes of Oceania.

Honolulu, Bishop Museum 1936-37-38. Three volumes large octavo publisher's printed wrappers; numerous photo illustrations and line drawings throughout. An excellent set.
¶ Hard to find complete in such good shape, this is the definitive work. I: The Canoes of Polynesia, Fiji, and Micronesia by Hornell; II: The canoes of Melanesia, Queensland by Haddon; III: Definition of Terms, General Survey, and Conclusions by both.

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Book number: 10817

Keywords: technology naval architecture design boats maritime canoes Australia Pacific New Guinea nautical ethnology

Kurata Hakuyo.

[Hiko Jidosha Sugoroku].

Tokyo, Bukyo Sekai Sha 1913 (Taisho 2). Colour broadside 55x78cm. Used, with some small holes in folds and a repaired tear; quite acceptable.
¶ This rare and captivating game was the new year gift from the magazine Bukyo Sekai. We follow two kids as they wreak havoc round the world in their flying car. Like all well prepared kids they packed their revolvers, handy when a lion attacks from one side and tigers from the other; likewise unfriendly black folk and what I take to be a roc.

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Book number: 10816

Keywords: sugoroku graphic art paper games pastimes c20th Japan modernism children juvenile illustration science fiction

HAMMER, William J.

Radium, and other Radioactive Substances; Polonium, Actinium, and Thorium, ... properties and applications of Selenium and the treatment of disease by the ultra-violet light.

NY, van Nostrand 1903. Octavo publisher's cloth; viii,72pp and publisher's list; frontispiece and 39 illustrations, most from photos. An excellent, bright copy; two contemporary clippings on rear endpapers and some neat, inoffensive and easily removed pencilling.
¶ The first book on radium and, as befits an Edisonian inventor and pioneer of electric lighting, enthusiastic, even gung ho, in its embrace of these new discoveries. The book is based on a lecture, one of many Hammer gave in 1903, displaying to America his nine tubes of radium acquired in France by grace of the Curies; it describes their work and that of other researchers, his own experiments and outlines possible applications. Hammer's list of accomplishments would now be reviewed with mixed approbation: he proposed and used radium for treating cancer and tumours, curing a tumour in his own hand in 1903 but he was also one of the first people to be burnt by radium; he invented the selenium cell but also invented the radioactive luminous paints and colours that became the rage in such things as clock and watch faces which killed and disfigured so many of the workers who applied them.

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Book number: 7607

Keywords: science chemistry radioactivity medicine c20th radium

HANDS, Joseph.

Beauty, and the Laws Governing its Development; with suggestions on education, relative to the attainment of beauty.

London, E.W. Allen [1882?] with overlaid ticket of the Chicago National Institute of Science. Slender octavo, publisher's decorated red cloth blocked in black and gilt; 88pp. A couple of minor flaws to the cloth, rather good.
¶ Only edition and elusive; just like describing Hands' writings in a simple and clear way. Hands was a London physician cum homeopath, apparently still respectable - viz his membership of the Royal College of Surgeons presuming his claim is true - and wrote works best, or most easily, described as thoroughly Victorian lunatic fringe: on will-ability and mind-energy, on the laws of matter and motion, and here, on aesthetics. Hands begins with seven aphorisms, one of which was Hogarth's, all sensible enough; the last is quite noble. But from there he leaps from the ideal human form (5'10" tall for man; 5'6'' for woman) to electro-polar action to colour to the lapse of time like an ibex in the high alps and following him leaves us breathless and bewildered.

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Book number: 10679

Keywords: art aesthetics beauty education science philosophy psychology medicine c19th England reform progress

HANDS, Joseph.

Beauty, and the Laws Governing its Development; with suggestions on education, relative to the attainment of beauty.

London, E.W. Allen [1882?]. Slender octavo, very good in publisher's decorated ochre cloth blocked in black and gilt; 88pp.
¶ Only edition and elusive, just like describing Hands' writings in a simple and clear way. Hands was a London physician cum homeopath, apparently still respectable - viz his membership of the Royal College of Surgeons presuming his claim is true - and wrote works best, or most easily, described as thoroughly Victorian lunatic fringe: on will-ability and mind-energy, on the laws of matter and motion, and here, on aesthetics. Hands begins with seven aphorisms, one of which was Hogarth's, all sensible enough; the last is quite noble. But from there he leaps from the ideal human form (5'10" tall for man; 5'6'' for woman) to electro-polar action to colour to the lapse of time like an ibex in the high alps and following him leaves us breathless and bewildered.

Richard Neylon, BooksellerProfessional seller

Book number: 8864

Keywords: art aesthetics beauty education science philosophy psychology medicine c19th England reform progress

HANDS, Joseph.

Will-Ability; or, Mind and its Varied Conditions and Capacities. A dissertation and explanation of the mystery of Will-Ability, Mind-Energy, or Mental Volition, as exercised in controlling ourselves, or the thoughts, feelings, and acts of others; exemplified, especially as to the latter capabilities, by the faculty of Electro-Biology, or Animal Magnetism, and the Influence of Fascination. Illustrated by facts. Also observations on the consequences effected in us through the quality or dominion of Faith and Belief, or Self-Will Operation, as influenced by the phrenological organ of hope, and called into active being, through the agency of education and persuasion, and other means, as Charms, Spells and Amulets, to which are added essays on Free-Will and Fate, Destiny and Inevitable Necessity.

London, J. Burns [1875]. Octavo publisher's green cloth blocked in black & titled in gilt; viii,158pp. With a grateful inscription from the author to Miss M. Wait, who transcribed the book; Hands has also made a few additions to the text.
¶ Can you think of any mid-Victorian fad, hobby-horse or loony fringe preoccupation not covered in the title? Clairvoyancy? Perhaps so but that appears on page two as part of Hands' work treating patients by animal magnetism. Anything missed here probably appears in two of his other books, one on beauty and the laws of its attainment, the other seems to cover the rest of the laws of the universe. He also wrote on homeopathy, isopathy (?), dietetics and promised to write on vaccination (for the affirmative). Hands was a London homeopath but, knowing nothing more whatsoever about him, all we can add is that this is humanitarian reform; Hands is convinced that practical application of his principles would sweep away 'nearly every species of crime'. Punishment having proved worse than useless, leniency, benevolence and education are necessary.

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Book number: 8202

Keywords: science philosophy psychology medicine c19th England phrenology reform progress crime social sciences

Hiroshi Hara [?].

[Minatominato no Ryokigai].

Tokyo, Fuzoko Shiryo 1931 [Showa 6]. Octavo publisher's illustrated wrapper (a bit used); photo illustrations on ten pages, 167pp and three page publisher's list. Part of the series Dekameron Sosho.
¶ A modest but characteristic contribution to the ero-guro-nansensu (erotic - grotesque - nonsense) fashion of late Taisho and early Showa Japan: jaunts among the strange denizens of ports. The small grainy photos are a gathering of the expected seamy misfits, outcasts and dock lowlife in the ports of the world mixed with a couple of baffling innocuous views and bar scenes from films. It will probably make sense to those who can read the book: the chapter headings - there are ten chapters of course - do seem to connect to the photos.

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Book number: 10024

Keywords: literature social history c20th Japan Asia modernism erotica ero-guro-nansensu women sex fad

von HARBOU, Thea; Anita Loos, & Hata Toyokichi.

[Metoroporisu - ie Metropolis] : [Tonogata Wa Kinpatsu Ga Osuki - Gentlemen Prefer Blondes].

Tokyo, Kaizosha 1928 (Showa 3) 15x11cm publisher's cloth and illustrated dustwrapper (tiny chip at the top of the spine near invisibly repaired); 560,[2]pp, colour frontispiece and 10 full page b/w photo illustrations - stills from the film. Page facing a frontispiece browned. In a simple, smart, lace tied protective case by Atsuo Ikuta - bookbinder, book collector and writer - with four pages of notes about the book written by Atsuo.
¶ First Japanese edition of Metropolis and doubtless the first of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes which starts at p401, both translated by Hata Toyokichi. This is volume 15 of a series called Sekai Taishu Bungaku Zenshu - a library of Popular World Literature - which ran to 80 volumes between 1928 and 1931. It's a mishmash of contemporary thrillers, bestsellers, old potboilers and classics. These are way better made books than the toilet roll quality British series Reader's Library which included the first English edition of Metropolis, but it's no easier to find a copy as good as this. Certainly my searches through the series turn up tired, grubby, thumbed books that can't remember when they last saw their dustwrapper. The wrapper uses the illustration from the original 1926 German wrapper.

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Book number: 11138

Keywords: literature fiction science fiction sci-fi fantasy c20th Germany Japan thrillers film cinema

HARROP, Dorothy A.

A History of the Gregynog Press.

Private Libraries Association 1980. Small quarto, very good in publisher's cloth; xv,266pp, 67 illustrations.

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Book number: 7219

Keywords: printing binding publishing paper typography private press c20th England

Kaburagi Kiyokata & Miyagawa Haru?

[Boken Sugoroku].

Shonenkai 1906 (Meiji 39). Colour broadside 47x63cm. Folded as issued, rather good.
¶ Don't be fooled by the elegant and delicate artwork. This new year gift from the boy's magazine Shonenkai is filled with adventure, peril and slaughter. Nothing with fur, fin or feather - if large enough - is safe from these boys on their jaunt round the world. When they aren't shooting eagles they are clubbing seals. No artist is named but a 2016 exhibition at the Shinjuku Historical Museum attributed this game to Kaburagi and Miyagawa.

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Book number: 10639

Keywords: paper games pastimes illustration cartoons manga sugoroku c20th Japan modernism graphic Asia travel hunting meiji

Hashizume, Kan'ichi (publisher).

[Doban : Shogaku Nyumon : Chirishoho].

Tokyo, Hashizume 1875 (Meiji 8). 11x8cm publisher's wrapper with title label; 22 double leaves (44pp), illustrations thoughout. An outstanding copy in the original printed outer wrapper (fukuro).
¶ Another charming little version of this introduction to elementary school studies, this time engraved (Doban in the title means engraved) and devoted to geography. There are quite a few versions of Shogaku Nyumon under different titles, varying in subject, charm, interest and form. I've traced mention of another Hashizume Shogaku title but not this one.

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Book number: 11054

Keywords: social sciences history colour theory c19th Japan education children juvenile progess science meiji geography