Maggs Bros.

The special edition of Kawakami’s alphabet book of personalities, from A for Admiral, to Z for Zeus.

The present title was first published by the art book publishers Hangaso in 1935 in a larger format. At the time Kawakami was a high school English teacher, and collaborated with Hangaso on a few illustrated English-Japanese phrase books – see Riidoru ehon (1937). Prior to this book, he had previously published a similar title in 1929 called Gashu egeresu iroha (‘English ABC Scenes’) and Egeresu iroha shishu (‘English ABC Poetry Book’) in 1930, both of which he published privately. The clarity of alphabet books and their scope for illustrations was clearly a format that Kawakami enjoyed playing with.

This special (technically second) edition was published by Ryuseikaku as part of their series of limited edition books. They explain on the inside of the box that they only wanted to print 100 copies so that each book would find a deserving home – rather than being faced with multiple unsold copies or books being resold quickly. What is special about this edition is that is also features an essay by Yanagi Soetsu (1889-1961), the founder of the Mingei movement. Yanagi’s essay praises Kawakami Sumio’s work, explaining in some detail all the elements that make his books special and why he enjoys collecting them. This essay does not appear in the first edition (1935) and was specially commissioned by Ryuseikaku.

Only one copy in OCLC (Manoa Library, Hawaii).