Jonathan A. Hill Bookseller Offers Japanese, Chinese, & Korean Books, Scrolls, and Manuscripts

Jonathan A. Hill Bookseller has issued their latest collection Japanese, Chinese, & Korean Books, Scrolls, and Manuscripts, Catalogue 248. The items offered are mostly very old, 16th-19th century, with a few inching into the early 20th.They have made it easy to pick your collecting region by breaking the catalogue into sections for Japan, China, and Korea. These are a few selections of what you will find.

We begin with a pop-up book. You're probably thinking it will be a children's book, but not at all. These pop-ups are serious business in Japan. It is called Chaseki Okoshiezu (folding drawings of the famous tea houses). These are architectural drawings that come with pop-ups of the tea houses to help the builder visualize what is to be done. Hill explains, they are “extremely complex models for tea ceremony houses (chashitsu) and their related buildings, including the floor plans of the various rooms along with pop-up flaps of the walls, benches, shelves, boxes, shutters, awnings, ceilings, etc. The flaps all have highly detailed printed or manuscript notes providing measurements, design details, materials, and function. In Japan, paper pop-up models have been used since at least the 16th century as a primary means of communication between carpenters and their patrons, particularly in the construction of tea houses.” Even more detail is provided by flaps attached to the flaps showing interior objects such as benches, shelves, and display alcoves. They add, “the okoshi-ezu has no real counterpart in Western drawing.” It is dated after 1868. Item 4. Priced at $17,500.

Here is another form of printed or manuscript communication which, if not unknown in the West, is certainly much less common than it was in East Asia. These are scrolls, a technology that takes us back to biblical times. Item 13 contains four scroll of Fugisan (Mount Fuji). It is Japan's most notable natural feature, a beautiful and sacred part of the landscape. There are 83 paintings of the majestic mountain on these scrolls, taken from every conceivable point of view and season. They range from bare to snow-covered, and include a close-up of the crater. The scrolls are all large, the longest running 80 feet. The artist is unknown. They date to the 19^th century. Item 13. $19,500.

Qiansun Ge provided these cures for tuberculosis, Juyaku Shinsho (Ten Proved Prescriptions for Pulmonary Tuberculosis). Don't try these. Seek serious medical help. They won't work. Ge offered ten remedies made from vegetables that were supposedly providing miraculous results. There are also sections on acupuncture which might provide relief from symptoms but won't cure the disease. Ge can't be criticized too harshly for getting it wrong. He lived in the 14^th century. It would not be until the 20^th that a successful vaccine was developed. This edition is from 1690. Item 14. $4,500.

This is an amazing manuscript from Gentaku Otsuki entitled Kankai ibun... (observations in foreign countries, the stories of the travels of four shipwrecked Japanese, as told to Gentaku Otsuki). Sixteen Japanese seamen were caught in a storm in November 1793 and ended up being shipwrecked in the Aleutians. They were rescued by Russians and taken to St. Petersburg at the request of Tsar Alexander I. They remained there until 1803, and five of them were added to Krusenstern's first Russian circumnavigation. They were the first Japanese to circle the globe. They were taken along as one of the objectives of Krusenstern's voyage was to establish diplomatic relations with Japan. Four of them were the ones interviewed for this story, the fifth returning to Russia as a translator. They describe their experiences in Russia and the many things they saw. There are descriptions of Moscow and St. Petersburg and life in those cities. The final sections give an account of the voyage and their return to Japan. The manuscript contains numerous colored illustrations of the things they saw. Many copies of this manuscript were made and passed around. Japan was a tightly closed island at the time so people were naturally curious to see anything they could find about the outside world. This is an early one, “copied” in 1815. The earliest surviving one is from 1807. The story was finally published in 1899. Item 44. $12,500.

Here's another shipwreck story. Duchan Choe was a Korean who was shipwrecked in China. His book is Ganghaeng seungsarok (Record of My Voyage on the Seas & Rivers). It recounts how his boat went off course a result of heavy winds, and his time in China, as well as making his way back to Korea. It also contains some of his poetry. Fortunately, Choe was generously received and housed while in China. It contains a preface from Shen Qiqian, who met Choe in China, and contains some valuable words worth repeating here. He wrote, “A classicist who reads ten thousand chapters worth of books should travel ten thousand li worth of road, and then what he sees and hears will expand his inner horizons. If not, then he will be writing clichés. Not leaving one’s home to wander is to be like the 'frog in the well' (who thought that the well amounted to the whole world and knew nothing of what lay outside it).” This edition was published in 1913, but Choe's journey was much earlier as the preface is dated 1818. Item 93. $7,500.

Jonathan A. Hill Bookseller may be reached at 917-294-2678 or jonathan@jonathanahill.com. Their website is www.jonathanahill.com.