Takau Shimada – författare

This facsimile collection features eight satirical fictions from eighteenth-century Britain, which use Japan as their main setting. The authors of this fiction include Jonathan Swift, Tobias Smollett, and George Psalmanazar, the most famous literary fraud and imposter of the eighteenth century. English translations of various European works of the period which became very popular in England have also been included within this collection, which will be a valuable primary source to all students of eighteenth-century English literature, and those interested in the image of Japan and the Japanese held by British writers in the early Modern period.

A most comprehensive bibliography of books in English published before 1800 and includes descriptions of Japan or any related subjects. The value of bibliographic data of approx. 4,520 titles are added by the number of pages where Japan is depicted.From the Preface by Takaku Shimada:---Since I published Chronological Bibliography of Anglo-Japanese Relations 1497–1800 (Eureka Press) in 2005, a flood of materials on the topics which it covers have been discovered in English writings published before 1801. During the past six years, I have continued to collect primary sources and have added approximately 3,000 publications that describe Japan to those in the Chronological Bibliography, and the publications total about 4,520. In order to alleviate the great burden of checking where descriptions of Japan are found, I have shown in this new Bibliography the pages on which the country is depicted.It is common knowledge that William Adams from Kent was the first Englishman to set foot in Japan. He arrived at Usuki, Bungo in 1600. It is to be noted, however, that he was not the first Englishman that introduced Japan to Britain. The earliest publication that referred to the country is Richard Eden’s Decades,which appeared in 1555.Regrettably, bibliographies of English works on Japan that have so far appeared deal only with some important works such as Francis Caron’s A True Description of Kingdoms of Japan and Siam (1663), Arnoldus Montanus’s Atlas Japannensis (1670) and Engelbert Kaempfer’s The History of Japan (1727). Even Henri Cordier’s Bibliotheca Japonica includes only a small number of English books on Japan, and lists of relevant books have not got longer. All this has hampered enrichment of knowledge of Anglo-Japanese relations before 1801 and has given the impression that Japan was little known in Britain before the year.As a historical fact, Japan was quite well known in Britain before 1801. The materials included in this Bibliography illustrate that myriad aspects of Japan were dealt with in English publications that came out before the year. Jonathan Swift, for example, describes the religious ceremony of trampling on the crucifix in Gulliver’s Travels (1726).I am not bold enough to claim that I have collected all the English materials that carry descriptions of Japan and expect that many people who have an interest in relations between Britain and Japan will discover other materials on the country that closed its doors to the outside world in the Edo period.

This is the third part of Edition Synapse’s series of collections of early English writings on children. It consists of facsimile reprints of rare educational and religious books and pamphlets, including conduct books and advice for parents in the early Modern period. A total of fourteen items are reproduced in this part, which includes writings by Benjamin Bourn, Thomas Lancaster, Thomas Beddoes, and others. For those seeking to trace the development of British views on children during the period from the late sixteenth century to the turn of the eighteenth century, it is an invaluable resource.

‘The most famous single work of biographical art in the whole of literature.’ by (W. J. Bate) This is a reprint of the rare first edition (first issue) of the Boswell's biography which has never been reprinted in facsimile format before. The original writing by Boswell in this edition is very different from later editions which are thoroughly edited and rewritten.This is an indispensable source for the study of 18th century English society and literature and will be reprinted together with an even rarer booklet of Corrections and Additions to the First Edition which Boswell prepared himself and distributed only to the subscribers to the first edition.

First Published in 2006. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Edited by Takau Shimada (Senshu University, Japan) and Keiichi Matsudaira (Tokyo Denki University, Japan), this is a collection of thirty writings on the English landscape garden from the late seventeenth century through the eighteenth century, a period when the British picturesque movement flourished as a vital part of British cultural and aesthetic life.Ordered chronologically from the time when the idea of the landscape garden was introduced, the collection offers the primary source materials on such gardens as Stowe, Kew, Blenheim and others. The set includes not only famous books by Hogarth, Walpole, and Mason, but also very rare books and pamphlets by unknown authors.