The narrative of a Japanese; what he has seen and the people he has met in the course of the last forty years.

Yokohama : Japan Gazette, Meiji 28 [1895]. Two volumes, octavo (220 x 155 mm), original blind-blocked brown (Vol. I) and tan (Vol. II) cloth, upper boards and spines lettered in gilt (both volumes with a few light marks to the boards and softened at spine ends); pp. [4], iii, [1 blank], 346, [1 blank], [2 errata]; [2], 254, v, [1 blank], [1 colophon in Japanese], errata slip at rear; Volume I with a map and [2] unnumbered plates, and several illustrations in the text; Volume II with 7 numbered plates (including a plan of the battle at Choshiu) and [5] unnumbered facsimile reproduction plates (one of them double-page), and illustrations in the text; Volume I: spotting to edges, heavy foxing to pastedowns and endpapers, light foxing to half-title and title, contents with some very occasional spotting but otherwise internally very clean; Volume II: early ownership inscription to front free-endpaper, title-leaf browned and with a short tear at bottom edge, otherwise excellent throughout.

Rare first edition of this extraordinary account of a Japanese who suffered shipwreck in 1850, was rescued by an American vessel and taken to San Francisco where he became the first Japanese to be granted American citizenship. He spent some ten years being educated there and subsequently (1860) returned to Japan where he became interpreter at the U.S. Consulate. There he was an eyewitness to the Shimonoseki rebellion of 1863.

Nipponalia (Kyoto University), I 230. Not in Cordier, BJ