CATALOGUE OF THE NORDENSKIOLD COLLECTION OF JAPANESE BOOKS IN THE ROYAL LIBRARY.

Stockholm 1980, [Royal Library]. Green stiff wrs., very good 388p., slight bump to corner, contents clean, concordance, with 1082 excellent entries with full bibliographic descrip- tion for each, with English & Japanese characters. OBSCURE ! With 1082 entries with full bibliographic notes , Also with personal name & book title index. . The A.E .Nordenskiold collection of Japanese illustrated books was made in Japan 100 years ago as a direct result of the famous & celebrated successful voyage of the "VEGA" through the so-called North-east Passage: from Sweden over the Northern waters of Russia and through the Bering Strait. * The world-famous expedition was led by Adolf Erik Nordenskiold [18 Nov. 1832-12 Aug. 1901], who with his officers and crew spend the months of September & October, 1879 in Japan before proceeding on to Sweden by the Southerly route and through the Mediterranean Sea. * Nordenskiold related the history & findings of the expedition in an eminently readable, popular report of the journey, in 2 vols. entitled THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA AROUND ASIA AND EUROPE, London & N.Y., 1881.It contains three chapters devoted to the 2 months in Japan, in which brief mention of the book collection is made. *** From a Swedish translation: "An even more valuable contribution to the knowledge of Japan's older history & its people's ancient culture is provided by the rather extensive Japanese book collection that I succeeded to bring together during my brief stay there. I was assisted by a young Japanese...on my account he searched through the stocks of countless antiquarian book dealers in Yokohama, Tokyo & Kyoto...I was guided by the desire to be able to bring home a more valuable & more enduring memento than could be conveyed by the natural history collections..." Thus it was very clear, during his visit the old feudal estates were being confiscated & the dispersal of a large number of historical & family collections of arms, armor, old books were completely disregarded & went to curio & book stores in great numbers." * This major and hitherto most OBSCURE bibliographical resource offers the collector a new & keen insight to a whole genre of E-hon many of which are NOT listed in the other standard reference bibliographies of the past. The preface offers a rich history of the collection and the first attempt at cataloging by Leon de Rosny, which was severely flawed. * A major resource for pre-Meiji books. Each entry shows the Romanized, Kanji author & title with English notes on date, original price, size, Rosny and other reference citations, with notes on the covers & title labels. The whole work is organized in the traditional subject format following that of the Naikaku Bunko with sections on: general, Shintoism, Buddhism, language, literature, music and drama, history, geography, government -law -economics, education, physical sciences, medicine, industries, fine arts and amateur arts, military arts, Sinology and Chinese works, book & personal name index. An essential reference for any collector or student of E-hon. * .