This is one of the so-called crepe paper books and the first volume
of Japanese Fairy Tale Series. The content is a folktale of Momotarô,
told (or written) by Hasegawa Takejirô, the owner of Kôbun-sha,
to David Thompson, a missionary in Japan, who translated it. It was published
by Kôbun-Sha. It is a small book about 15 cm by 10 cm and in eleven
leaves. The most distinctive feature of the book is that it is an artistic
handicraft, with colored block-printed illustrations by Kobayashi Eitaku
and English texts on Japanese paper, wrinkled many times into crepe, and
bound in silk thread. Although there is a theory that crepe paper books
were made for souvenirs for foreigners, Hasegawa's project can be valued
as the earliest attempt to export Japanese literature, including folktales.
The book was reprinted in August 1886 and there are at least two kinds of reprint: one is owned by The National Diet Library, another is owned by Baika Women's College (whose cover is the same but the title is different: Japanese Fairy Tale Series No.1 Momotaro). The International Institute for Children's Literature, Osaka owns a reprint whose cover page is lost and only half of the publisher's imprint page remains, but the rest of the book is the same. There are some editions with different covers or different qualities of paper. It is presumed that two kinds of crepe paper book Momotaro and two kinds of ordinary book Momotaro were published at the same time. |
