Things Japanese/Bibliography

by by Basil Hall Chamberlain

 

Bibliography. The best, for European books on Japan, is Fr. von Wenckstern's Bibliography of the Japanese Empire, which, however, only goes as far as the year 1895. It includes a facsimile reprint of Léon Pagè's Bibliographie Japonaise, which had appeared a generation earlier. Though not a regular bibliography, Sir Ernest Satow's admirable article on Japanese Literature in the "American Cyclopædia" gives the titles of a considerable number of native Japanese books. The Gunsho Ichiran, published in 1801, ranks as the standard Japanese authority on the subject, but takes no notice of novels and other works of a popular nature. Samura's Zusho Gedai (revised edition, 1904) has a more extended scope.