It’s said that good things come in threes, and here they are.
1. The Kornicki Collection
The first is Peter Kornicki’s donation of his remarkable collection of antiquarian Japanese books to the Bodleian Library in November 2021. Peter is Emeritus Professor of Japanese at Cambridge University but is an Oxford alumnus, having taken his first degree here in 1972 and his D.Phil. in 1979.
Among them are twenty-three Japanese editions of Chinese works (kanseki wakokuhon 漢籍和刻本) and one Korean edition which I have catalogued and listed here, with links to illustrations of specimen pages (書影).
Peter has written a scholarly bibliographical description of his collection which he has made freely available, and I have made references to this at the end of each record, so that 「康仁希文庫目録, A, 19」, for example, points to the nineteenth work in section A of his catalogue.
Peter acquired all the books in the collection on numerous visits to Japan over a period of 40 years, with the exception of two which he bought from Sam Fogg Rare Books in London. These are not only the two oldest books in the collection, but are also kanseki wakokuhon, and thus fall within the remit of the Serica Project. They are both fragments of Buddhist texts and are fine examples of mediaeval Japanese temple printing.
The earlier of the two was printed in 1278 at the temple Kongōbuji 金剛峯寺 on Mt Kōya 高野山, and is thus a so-called Kōya-ban 高野版; the other was printed in the late Kamakura 鎌倉 period (14th century) possibly at Kōfukuji 興福寺 in Nara, whose editions are known as Kasuga-ban 春日版 owing to the custom of presenting copies of them to the nearby Kasuga Taisha 春日大社 (Kōfukuji was the temple of the Fujiwara family, and Kasuga Taisha was their family shrine).
These two related editions have a primal beauty which, I think, cannot fail to move anyone with an interest in East Asian bibliography. Here they are:
大毗盧遮那成佛經疏 : 殘一卷 / (唐釋)一行記
日本弘安元年[1278]高野山金剛峯寺刊本
線裝1冊 : 圖 ; 26公分
殘卷十六
有「月明莊」印記
康仁希文庫目録, A, 1
大般涅槃經 : 殘一卷 / (北涼釋)曇無讖譯
日本鎌倉後期刊本
1卷 ; 28公分
殘卷六
康仁希文庫目録, A, 2
Peter’s donation brings the total number of pre-modern kanseki wakokuhon in the Library to 87, and I have listed them all here.
2. Southern Ming calendars
In one of my earliest blog entries I discussed the calendars that were produced by the Ming loyalist regime in Taiwan to justify its imperial pretensions. At first I thought that the only surviving copies of these were in English libraries, but subesequently discovered from Yang Yongzhi’s 楊永智 book 《明清時期台南出版史》(台灣學生書局, 2007) that both the earliest and latest surviving issues (1667 and 1683) were “in the collection of the Kanda family” (p.16).
I assumed that “the Kanda family” referred to that of the great bibliographer Kanda Kiichirō 神田喜一郎 whose collection is now at Otani University in Kyoto, but its published catalogue 《神田鬯盦博士寄贈図書目録》(1988) makes no mention of them. So I concluded my entry by saying that I would very much like to know where they are. Of course, I could have contacted Yang Yongzhi, but as ever, wandered off in other directions.
A few weeks ago, my prayers were answered. Zheng Cheng had read my blog entry, and put me in touch with a young Chinese scholar who had taken a Ph.D. at Kyoto University last year and is currently engaged in post-doctoral work at Fudan University in Shanghai. I now know him by his English name of Leo – his real name is Yin Minzhi 尹敏志, and he blogs as Baixian 白鹇. He is keenly interested in the Chinese books that were published, collected, and studied in Japan, and has already written a book which touches on these things: 《 东京蠹余录》(广西师范大学出版社, 2020). I must thank him for most of the following information.
The calendars were offered for sale in 2021 at the annual antiquarian book auction organised by Tōkyō Kotenkai 東京古典会 , and appeared in the catalogue 《古典籍展觀大入札會目錄》 and also on the Society’s website. It seems that they were originally owned by Kanda Kōgan 神田香巌 (that is, Kanda Nobuatsu 神田信醇, 1854-1918, the grandfather of Kanda Kiichiro 神田喜一郎). They may well have been inherited by Kiichiro, but clearly they were not among the books that went to Otani University, and I don’t know under what circumstances they came to be sold.
At the time, Leo downloaded this image of them from the Tōkyō Kotenkai website; it’s no longer there, and unfortunately it’s not very clear, but it’s all we’ve got at present and it makes the point well enough:
Leo was also able to examine the calendars, and has told me that they are printed on brittle paper, and are wrapped in a thick paper cover bearing the following information presumably written by a former Japanese collector:
永曆二十一年
永曆三十七年
台灣曆二冊
永曆十六年永明王被難十八年鄭成功入
台灣是年以疾卒三十七年鄭錦卒子
克塽年甫十二不克統領其眾眾潰降于清
見賜姓始末此曆則其末年也偶得之
故紙堆中稱中興正朔者實可哀憐也
明治七年三月中旬 吉雪齋藏
The calendars were bought by the antiquarian bookstore Tōjō Shoten 東城書店 in Jimbōchō 神保町, reportedly for the sum of JPY10,000,000 (currently GBP60,000).
Learning all these things was very timely, as I had already arranged to go Japan in the second half of April. So I contacted Tōjō Shoten to ask if I might see the calendars and perhaps get some decent illustrations of them. Both requests were refused. The most I could extract from them was an undertaking that they would let me know when they eventually offered them for sale, which Leo tells me will be for an eye-watering price.
The 1683 (永曆三十七年) issue is particularly special as in that year the Southern Ming was finally brought to an end by the Manchus, and in the following year Taiwan became a prefecture of Fujian Province. All this is given additional piquancy by the current goings-on in that part of the world, something which has surely not escaped the attention of Tōjō Shoten.
3. Fengmian 封面
I’ve always found it difficult to translate the term fengmian 封面 in a way that would enable English readers to understand immediately what it is. Against my better judgement I’ve occasionally called it a “title-page”, but that is misleading as the Chinese fengmian lacks the authority of the western title-page and serves a different purpose.
While wandering around the streets of Tokyo during my visit last month, I came across this bookshop which almost certainly will not survive its present owner. There were many similar shops in Jimbōchō when I worked there 50 years ago, but almost all of them have now been replaced by modern multi-storey buildings with offices on the upper floors and what remains of the bookshop on the ground floor. It is called Asakusa Mikuramae Shobō 浅草御蔵前書房, and is situated in the neighbourhood of the famous temple of Sensōji 浅草寺 (better known as Asakusa Kannon 浅草観音) and the chefs’ paradise of Kappabashi 合羽橋.
Here, some old books (mostly pre-Meiji popular illustrated editions) can be seen in the centre of the display, laid flat so that their titles were visible, inviting passers-by to pick them up, examine them, and hopefully buy them. The setup reminded me of a photograph I once saw of an early twentieth-century Chinese bookshop in which a display of this kind occupied its entire frontage. It was almost certainly one of Hedda Morrison’s, but now I can’t find it.
The fengmian was designed to attract the attention of passers-by in just this situation, and the information it contained was drafted accordingly. It could include a descriptive title, the names of any famous authors or commentators, the name of the printing house or owner of the blocks, and a date. All these elements were intended to be eye-catching rather than strictly accurate or honest. Here are two examples from the late Ming:
史記 一百三十卷 / (漢)司馬遷撰 ; (劉宋)裴駰集解 ; (唐)司馬貞索隱 ; (唐)張守節正義
明末程正揆校刊本金閶書業堂藏板
線裝32冊 ; 26公分
封面题名《史記評林》
有「書業」、「書業鼎記圖印」印記
Backhouse 292
性理大全書 七十卷 / (明)胡廣等奉敕撰 ; (明)吳勉學重校
明末刊本季秀堂唐際雲藏板
線裝32冊 ; 27公分
版心下記刻工﹑字數
封面有「本衙藏板」印記
Backhouse 402
Note that both these editions are commercial ones. Imperial editions and the editions of private scholars were of an entirely different order and were not circulated in this way, so that they seldom have fengmian.