[No. 5.] 1889. THE OFFICIAL RAILWAY & STEAMBOAT TRAVELLER'S GUIDE, WITH GENERAL INFORMATION FOR TOURISTS IN JAPAN

[Japan]

Verlag: Printed and published at the Office of the "Japan Gazette,", Yokohama, 1889

[14],78,[21]pp., including many printed advertisements, plus two folding maps in rear pocket and seventeen pieces of related ephemera collected by original owner. Original printed stiff green wrappers. A bit worn and soiled, spine chipping at extremities, ink stain on front wrapper, upper edge of rear wrapper and last few leaves (including pocket) lightly chewed. Contemporary presentation inscription across inside front wrapper and following page. Very good, related ephemera in very good or better condition. An otherwise unrecorded, portable edition of this guide to Japanese travel, printed at the important JAPAN GAZETTE a year before the still-scarce expanded edition of 1890. The JAPAN GAZETTE was a very early and influential English-language newspaper founded by John Reddie Black in 1867. Through the JAPAN GAZETTE and its Japanese- language counterpart, NISSHIN SHINJISHI, Black is largely credited with establishing Western-style journalism in Japan, particularly by reporting on political issues and the activities of the government. Black left Japan when laws passed in 1874 restricted public criticism of the government and prohibited foreigners from editing Japanese-language papers, but his GAZETTE remained an important source of news and entertainment for foreigners living or interested in Japan, and its office continued printing books, directories, and travel guides such as the present work into the early 20th century. This guide, owned and clearly used by a young Massachusetts woman on an 1897 trip to East Asia, features a plethora of advice for the prospective visitor on nearly every subject. It includes tips on traveling from Kobe (where most steamers made landfall) to other major cities, denominations of Yen and the appropriate costs for typical transactions, gives the locations of banks and telegraph stations, lists clubhouses open to foreigners by location, and largely provides brief descriptions and directions to various sights worth seeing. It also contains several pages of Japanese phrases and vocabulary useful to travellers and timetables for steamboats and railroads. The two folding maps in the rear pocket, titled "The Official Railway Guide" for Northern and Central Japan respectively, depict cities and landmarks with the major rail lines overlaid in red, and are identical to those included in the 1890 edition. Several dozen pages of advertisements surround the main text, and include offers of accommodations in Japan, shipping and freight companies, curio shops, prescription medicines, Western-style goods and clothing, and other English-language books about Japan printed at the GAZETTE office. An inscription on the first pages of this copy reads "Presented by Mr. Lush to Nannie Jenckes Borden, January 27, '97." Borden (1877-1963), who has made a handful of pencil annotations in the margins of her copy, was a native of Bristol, Massachusetts, and appears to have used this travel guide to great effect on a turn-of-the-century trip to China and Japan. Accompanying the book are a flyer and pamphlet for the Boa Vista Hotel in Macao (dated 1897) as well as fifteen trade cards for various businesses. The trade cards, some illustrated, are generally for businesses located in and around Yokohama, and a handful of them have been updated with new addresses or additional information in manuscript. Some of the businesses include art studios, curio dealers, a fur dealer, and a jeweler, as well as one slightly out-of- place card for Kwong Hang Chang Chinese and Japanese Goods store in Vancouver, British Columbia. Also present is a printed ticket accomplished in manuscript, reserving a seat for "Miss N. J. Borden" on board the "S/S 'Omi Maru'." A rare and interesting piece of English- language printing from Japan, aimed at an American audience to encourage tourism, owned and used by just one such American woman. OCLC records no copies of this edition, and only four copies of the 1890 edition (the Universities of Leicester and A. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers WRCAM62461

Bibliografische Details

Titel: [No. 5.] 1889. THE OFFICIAL RAILWAY & ...
Verlag: Printed and published at the Office of the "Japan Gazette,", Yokohama
Erscheinungsdatum: 1889