Variant title: Makura no sōshi 枕草子. Author/compiler: Sei Shōnagon 清少納言, fl. late 10th century. Imprint: N.p., n.d. [Keichō 慶長 period, 1596-1615] . No colophon. Description: 5 kan, 5 satsu, in a modern decorative case of yellow silk brocade. Folios unnumbered. 28 x 20.5 cm. Fukurotoji. Movable type. Printing frame 23 x 18 cm. No borders. No printed hanshin. Hiragana-majiri text without furigana. 10 lines to page, 18 characters to line. Original dark brown covers with hand-lettered title slips, centrally placed, on satsu 2-5 only. Title slip missing from satsu 1. Title from manuscript gedai: Sei Shōnagon makura no sōshi 清少納言枕草子. No naidai. Edition: The earliest printed edition of this work. Other movable type editions were published in Keichō / Genna and Kan'ei periods, with 12 and 13 lines to the page respectively. No blockprinted edition followed until Keian 2 慶安二年 (1649). Contents: The earliest and finest zuihitsu 随筆 work in Japanese literature, written c. AD 1000. A collection of short eye-witness anecdotes, casual essays, thoughts, impressions and imagined scenes. This edition is considered to be the most faithful of all printed editions to the original text.
Sei Shōnagon makura no sōshi 清少納言枕草子
This material is held atBritish Library Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections
- Reference
- GB 59 Or.81.c.1
- Dates of Creation
- [1596-1615]
- Language of Material
- Japanese
- Physical Description
- 5 volumes Condition: Very good. A clean copy. Minor worm damage, mostly in margins, has been carefully repaired by urauchi patching. Impression: Type shows some signs of wear. Seals of ownership: Large square red seal, printed inkoku, Fujiwara Norichika 藤原則親, on first page of text, and small oblong red seal, Akaki アカキ (Akagi Bunko) on mikaeshi, of each maki. Also an oblong red seal, Yokoyama-ke zō 橫山家蔵, on inner back cover of satsu 5. The latter two seals are both ex-libris of Yokoyama Shigeru 橫山重.
Scope and Content
Access Information
Not Public Record(s)
Unrestricted
Acquisition Information
Acquired from Kōbunsō, 1 March 1982.
Other Finding Aids
Kenneth Gardner, Descriptive Catalogue of Japanese books in the British Library printed before 1700 (London and Tenri, 1993).C.Japanese works 和書 6.Literature - prose 国文-散文 b.Zuihitsu 随筆
Bibliography
Nihon koten bungaku daijiten 日本古典文学大辞典, vol. 5, p. 511; Kokatsujiban no kenkyū 古活字版の研究, pp. 522-3, 891, pl. 380, 926; Kōbunsō keiaisho zuroku 弘文荘敬愛書図録, p. 246 (referring to this copy).