EXAMPLES OF PAGES GIVING
       PUBLICATION DETAILS IN JAPANESE BOOKS

1. IF THE RIVER WAS WHISKEY

More recent books - especially if they are translations - frequently give a lot of information in English. This one even says "Japanese edition first published in 1997" in English, but that doesn't prove anything. This particular copy could still be a later printing or even a later edition; it's what's written in Japanese that counts, not what it says in English.

2. HERMANN HESSE, SCHÖN IST DIE JUGEND

Until about the 1950s, a lot of books - especially first printings - had a little stamp on the page with the publication details. The stamp has a seal (usually the author's or translator's seal). This  is a typical example. In the previous example, the idea of a stamp and seal survives in the printed seal at the top.

Another clue that the page on the right carries the publication details is the fact that it has the price on it (well, two prices in fact!), using the symbol for yen, which is:

3. PRIMARY SCHOOL TEXTBOOK

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the page with the publication details often looked like this. As in the above example, the Japanese system of dating is used (see section on Japanese dates). The title (which is usually given on the same page) is in this case on the opposite page and shows the book to be the first of a series (see page on serials).

4. SHRINE AND TEMPLE
MOTIFS

The traditional Japanese book was printed on folded rice paper, like the one on the right, the last volume in a series illustrating motifs used in shrines and temples. Symbols were often printed over the fold itself (extreme right), showing the page number and contents of each leaf. This example (from a book of shrine motifs during the Meiji period) is a bit more difficult to interpret, in that it doesn't use the same symbols as I explain below, but the basic layout is similar, and (as we shall see when we come back to look at these pages in more detail later on) that helps a lot in determining the edition.


The next step is to find and interpret the date (or dates) given on these pages.

                        NEXT      FIRST      PREVIOUS      HOME

                                                Contact Me