The Book in Japan
A Cultural History from the Beginnings to the Nineteenth Century
University of Hawaii Press
New in paperback.
Of related interest:
A History of Writing in Japan, by Christopher Seeley
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.
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.
