Numerous woodcut illus. Four vols. 8vo, later wrappers, new stitching. [Japan]: Shōgetsuro 嘯月廬, 1861.

First edition of this richly illustrated work written for instructing Japanese children to read and write kanshi 漢詩, classical Chinese verse. Such instruction was part of the kangaku curriculum.

“Kangaku (literally ‘Chinese learning’) means mainly Confucian studies, but also Chinese history and culture in a wider sense, kanbun (classical Chinese and Sino-Japanese language and the literature written in it) and kanshi (Sino-Japanese poetry in the Chinese style). Education before 1868 meant chiefly education in kangaku, and a knowledge of kangaku continued to be viewed... More