KANT, Immanuel.

Metaphysical Works of the celebrated Immanuel Kant, translated from the German, with a Sketch of his Life and Writings, by John Richardson ... Containing 1. Logic. 2. Prolegomena to Future Metaphysics. 3. Enquiry into the Proofs for the Existence of God, and into the Theodicy, now first published.

London 1836 [but each printed for Simpkin & Marshall in 1819]. Octavo modern half calf; two engraved portraits (one for the first, the other for the third work), collective title and title for each work. A little browning here and there, a rather good, fresh copy.
¶ First English edition of the third work and re-issues of the original 1819 sheets of the first two. The Enquiry was also printed in 1819 but never published for some reason. Lack of interest easily explains the existence of unsold sheets being gathered together for sale (by Pickering?) in 1836 but not why the Enquiry was killed at birth. The title pages for Logic and Prolegomena each carry the 1819 Simpkin Marhsall imprint but are on different paper to the text - are these reprints made in 1836? Richardson was an old Kantian, he published the first translations of Kant into English in 1798 and apparently corresponded with Kant but otherwise remains in the shadows from what I can discern.

Richard Neylon, BooksellerProfessional seller

Book number: 9395

Keywords: philosophy literature c18th c19th Germany England logic metaphysics

Tsutsumi Kanzo.

[Manga sugoroku sekai haya nozoki].

Nagoya(?), Shin Aichi 1931 (Showa 6). Colour lithograph broadside, 55x70cm; Folded, a touch of nibbling on one edge; a nice copy with the playing pieces intact in the right margin.
¶ Sugoroku, these paper racing games, like most genres of Japanese graphics range from the fabulous, through insipid to kitsch to awful to downright disturbing. This one is up the fabulous end of the scale. Tsutsumi - one of the great pioneers of modern manga - takes two young aviators on quick world tour and shows them all the most important things. Curious, for me, is that each stop is not headed with the country name but some quality, some spectacle, some activity. Thus meeting Mussolini in Italy is titled 'hero'; for baseball we see see Babe Ruth knocking over a New York skyscraper; tennis is Henri Cochet in France; film is of course Charlie Chaplin in Hollywood; science is a zeppelin in Germany; war is Chiang Kai-shek in China; manners are learnt in England from Ramsay MacDonald; I'm not sure what the gymnastic penguins in the Antarctic represent. And so on round the globe with celebrity and national stereotypes galore.

Richard Neylon, BooksellerProfessional seller

Book number: 9824

Keywords: paper games pastimes illustration cartoons manga sugoroku c20th Japan modernism graphic art travel children juvenile progress Asia reform

Fujimoto Katao.

[Jitsuyo Oryori Kondate Manga Sugoroku].

Tokyo, Fujin Sekai 1926 (Taisho 15). Colour broadside 55x79cm. Mildly used, quite a good copy.
¶ This delightful manga sugoroku celebrates cooking and was the new year gift from the magazine Woman's World.

Richard Neylon, BooksellerProfessional seller

Book number: 10501

Keywords: paper games pastimes illustration cartoons manga sugoroku c20th Japan modernism graphic art progress food cooking reform

Kawakita Renshichiro & Takei Katso.

[Kosei Kyoiku Taikei].

Tokyo, Gakko Bijutsu Kyokai Shuppan-bu 1934 (Showa 9). 22x16cm publisher's colour printed boards (a bit spotted with small surface scrapes at the tips); [2], 12 plates (four colour), 520pp, profusely illustrated throughout. Some spotting around the edge; a rather good copy of a vulnerable book.
¶ First edition. A textbook in a way but a remarkable and thoroughly modernist one. Much influenced but, I'm told, not slavishly, by the Bauhaus method of teaching, this education in design or composition contains both the philosophy and practice of Kawakita's Shinkenchiku Kogei Gakuin (School of New Architecture and Design) successor to his Seikatsu Kosei Kenkyusho (Research Institute for Life Configurations). The book apparently caused some unhappiness among cutting edge architects who complained that it was too abstract but was hugely popular among art teachers. This might explain why the book seems so hard to find: a bunch of black thumbed, paint spattered art students soon puts paid to any book. Worldcat finds only the NDL entry.

Richard Neylon, BooksellerProfessional seller

Book number: 10909

Keywords: architecture art design modernism constructivism bauhaus c20th Japan meiji

Kabashima Katsuichi.

[Kasei Kuni Tanken Kyoso Sugoroku].

Tokyo, Shonen Kurabu 1927 (Taisho 16). Colour broadsheet; 79x54cm. On the back is another game in monochrome. Some browning a few small holes, pretty decent.
¶ I proclaim this the masterpiece of Kabashima - a busy illustrator and cartoonist for a few decades. He may be best known as the creator of the comic or manga series starring Shochan - which looked a lot like Herge before Herge did - or perhaps as the artist of ships and planes in turmoil but this meandering voyage to Mars via Saturn tops them all. This was the new year gift from the kids' magazine Shonen Kurabu (kids' club) and, being printed well in advance, is dated Taisho 16 rather than Showa 2 - the more proper date for 1927. The game on the back is the adventures of Yaji and Kita on the Tokaido. It's neither here nor there.

Richard Neylon, BooksellerProfessional seller

Book number: 10493

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

KAUFFMAN, Reginald Wright.

Miss Frances Baird Detective - A Passage From Her Memoirs.

Boston, Page 1906. Octavo publisher's illustrated pale blue cloth blocked in ochre, blue and black; colour frontispiece. Minimal signs of use, particularly with such foolishly vulnerable pale cloth, a nice copy.
¶ First edition of the advent of this professional detective - she reappears in a 1910 novel. Miss Baird is young, good looking, well educated, smart but not infallible - at the start she is under a cloud with her boss for bungling a number of cases. And she works by necessity: she is behind in her rent.A tangle of murder and twice stolen jewels is unravelled here, with a plot twist that was echoed sixty odd years later by P.D. James in a thriller that also stars a young woman detective scratching to pay her rent.

Richard Neylon, BooksellerProfessional seller

Book number: 10633

Keywords: literature fiction detective thrillers c20th women feminism

KAUTSKY, Karl.

Die Klassengegensatze von 1789, zum hundertjahrigen gedenktag der grotzen revolution.

Stuttgart, Dietz 1889. Octavo printed wrapper (back wrapper gone); 79pp. With a couple of contemporary stamps of the Melbourne Socialistischer Verein Vorwa[?].

Richard Neylon, BooksellerProfessional seller

Book number: 5902

Keywords: politics political economy socialism c19th reform social sciences progress

Kawaraban.

[Kyoiku Sanko Mankoku Dobutsu Daikaikai Shu Miyagi?] + [Shu Miyagi Hisayoshi?].

n.p. n.d. (mid 19th century). 1. 40x54cm woodcut. Old folds; a short closed tear quite good. 2. 20x27cm, woodcut. On the back are a fair few neat notes that I think are dated Meiji 4 (1871).
¶ I've seen a couple of similar menageries with similar titles and find this the most appealing. One, that I take to be earlier, has plenty of character but is sparse, less lively. The other, I take to be later, is as crowded but looks more like any number of animals-of-the-world illustrations from anywhere in the world. I've also seen this same print with title across the top.The kangaroos I'm sure everyone in the world can identify but even an expert naturalist might be surprised by the Mountain Shark of Australia in the bottom right corner. The uncharacteristically cheerful wombat, top left, is of course a bear.

Richard Neylon, BooksellerProfessional seller

Book number: 11176

Keywords: graphic art natural history c19th Japan kawaraban social history education hikifuda

Kawaraban.

[Ryutsu Shin Kahei-i-tsuki Hayami].

n.p.n.d. [c1870]. 32x41cm wood cut. A couple of small blotches, rather good.
¶ A quick guide to the new coins in circulation. Added to the mass of new things for Japanese to learn and new ways of thinking, with the Meiji restoration, was the new yen based currency.Kawaraban - illicit illustrated news sheets for the streets - were produced by the million for a couple of hundred years so of course few survive. They were produced for anything more interesting than the drop of a hat.

Richard Neylon, BooksellerProfessional seller

Book number: 10987

Keywords: kawaraban social history c19th Japan Asia reform progress graphic art illustration economics currency coins meiji

Kawaraban.

[Yoroppa Jin Zu].

n.p. [mid 19th century?]. Woodcut 31x24cm. Rather good.
¶ Europeans - this is a handy guide to the pesky foreigners who were beginning to swarm around Japan like jackals around a small but plump antelope.Kawarabans were illicit illustrated news sheets for the streets and produced by the million for a couple of hundred years so of course few survive. They were produced for anything more interesting than the drop of a hat.

Richard Neylon, BooksellerProfessional seller

Book number: 11026

Keywords: kawaraban social history travel c19th Japan Asia progress graphic art illustration race racism

Uemura Rokuro & Yoshida Keisuke

[Etchusanshishukan].

Washi Kenkyukai 1954. 30x22cm publisher's wrappers and folding cloth case; 45pp, three folding maps and two plates on various papers and 56 paper samples of various sizes. 250 copies were produced and were not for sale. An excellent copy.
¶ Etchu washi are handmade papers that have been made in the Toyama region for quite a few hundred years.

Richard Neylon, BooksellerProfessional seller

Book number: 10714

Keywords: graphic applied arts technology trades paper making c20th Japan

KELLY, Hugh.

The Romance of An Hour, a comedy of two acts, as it is performed, with universal applause, at the Theatre Royal in Covent-Garden.

London, for Kearsley 1774. Octavo modern plain wrapper; [4,8],44pp with publisher's advert on the last page for four other Kelly plays. A rather good copy.
¶ First edition of this up to the minute Anglo-Indian farce by the literary hack, virulent anti-American independence critic and ministry mouthpiece. Kelly's biographer, Robert Bataille, was surprised that Kelly announced his authorship so early - the first production was on December 2 and this printed edition was on the street by the 17th - given that an earlier play had been disrupted by rioting Wilkites. I suggest it was hope for riotous publicity that made Kelly put his name on the title. The play got a lot of poor, a few warm reviews and not much attention despite being, as I said, filled with current fads. The only truly admirable character is the Indian servant who is made, poor thing, to sound to us more like an American Indian in an old cowboy film than any Indian. He says everything but "heap big wampum". The heroine is a charming Anglo Indian aristocrat who has two well bred Englishmen competing for her hand despite her tint and Tahiti is thrown in - the latest chart is introduced and Bataille suggests that Kelly was capitalising with his noble native servant, on Omai, then in England.

Richard Neylon, BooksellerProfessional seller

Book number: 10151

Keywords: literature drama theatre c18th England India Tahiti Pacific race racism

Yamashita Ken'ichi (illustrator).

[Shogaku Kagaku Ehon : Sekiyu] .

Tokyo, Mitsukoshi 1937 (Showa 12). 215x195mm, publisher's boards with mounted illustration, dustwrapper (this used: browned and a bit chipped); colour and b/w illustrations by Yamashita throughout. Some browning here and there.
¶ This is volume 10 of the 12 volumes series Shogaku Kagaku Ehon - elementary science - devoted to oil. This is a quite exciting and vivid series hidden under dreary dustwrappers so it is natural to discard the dustwrappers immediately. They seemed inexplicable to me until I realised that many of these artists were in disgrace with officials and neither high modernism nor the fanciful were suitable for anyone let alone an impressionable child. The dustwrappers are the book equivalent of thick rimmed glasses and a false moustache. Proof that communists and such troublemaking artistic riff-raff can't be trusted.

Richard Neylon, BooksellerProfessional seller

Book number: 11066

Keywords: science technology geology oil transport education children juvenile c20th Japan Asia modernism progress

Yamashita Ken'ichi (illustrator).

[Shogaku Kagaku Ehon : Sekitan] .

Tokyo, Mitsukoshi 1937 (Showa 12). 215x195mm, publisher's boards with mounted illustration, dustwrapper (this used: browned and a bit frayed); colour and b/w illustrations by Yamashita throughout. Some browning here and there.
¶ This is volume 9 of the 12 volumes series Shogaku Kagaku Ehon - elementary science - devoted to coal. This is a quite exciting and vivid series hidden under dreary dustwrappers so it is natural to discard the dustwrappers immediately. They seemed inexplicable to me until I realised that many of these artists were in disgrace with officials and neither high modernism nor the fanciful were suitable for anyone let alone an impressionable child. The dustwrappers are the book equivalent of thick rimmed glasses and a false moustache. Proof that communists and such troublemaking artistic riff-raff can't be trusted.

Richard Neylon, BooksellerProfessional seller

Book number: 11067

Keywords: science technology geology coal education children juvenile c20th Japan Asia modernism progress

Yamashita Ken'ichi (illustrator).

[Shogaku Kagaku Ehon : Ie] .

Tokyo, Mitsukoshi 1937 (Showa 12). 215x195mm, publisher's boards with mounted illustration, dustwrapper (this used: smudged and a bit frayed); colour and b/w illustrations by Yamashita throughout. Some browning here and there.
¶ This is volume 8 of the 12 volumes series Shogaku Kagaku Ehon - elementary science - devoted to housing. This is a quite exciting and vivid series hidden under dreary dustwrappers so it is natural to discard the dustwrappers immediately. They seemed inexplicable to me until I realised that many of these artists were in disgrace with officials and neither high modernism nor the fanciful were suitable for anyone let alone an impressionable child. The dustwrappers are the book equivalent of thick rimmed glasses and a false moustache. Proof that communists and such troublemaking artistic riff-raff can't be trusted.

Richard Neylon, BooksellerProfessional seller

Book number: 11069

Keywords: science technology architecture building education children juvenile c20th Japan Asia modernism progress