Author: Fukuzawa Yukichi [as by Katayama Junnosuke].
Title: [Seiyo Ishokuju].
Description: n.p. 1867 (Keio 3). 15x11cm publisher's wrapper with title label; 40pp, woodcut illustrations throughout. A pleasingly used copy with carefully penned English alphabets on the front and inside both covers; the second annotated and the third quite elaborate capitals. ¶ A winsome little educative work that could be social anthropology, a study in material culture or a shopping list. Published on the eve of the Meiji and reform, this describes the appearance, purpose and use of western clothing - top to toe - utensils, furnishings and accessories like brushes, umbrellas and watches.This came after Fukazawa's near monumental 'Seiyo Jijo' and 'Seiyo Tabi Annai' - descriptions of the west from the missions to America and Europe - but wasn't published under his own name until the 1891 collected works. So we now have historians speaking of Fukazawa's 1867 book while librarians and sometimes booksellers catalogued it under Katayama - who seems to have been something of a literary hack who wrote the preface and apparently prepared the book for Fukuzawa. I read somewhere and can't find it again that the editor of the recent collected works found a difference between this original and the 1891 text and restored this.There is a lot of useful information for Japanese travellers here: don't slurp the soup, and remember the chamber pot (helpfully illustrated in place under a bed) has only one purpose.

Keywords: social sciences education Japan c19th progress reform costume applied arts meiji