Koto shamisen [trans.: Koto and Shamisen (two traditional Japanese stringed instruments)].
One double-page woodcut illus. & numerous woodcut illus. in the text. 38 folding leaves. Small 8vo, orig. patterned wrappers (wrappers a little waterstained, some worming), orig. block-printed title label on upper cover, new stitching. Edo: Tsutaya Juzaburo, 1783.
First edition and very rare; this work is a guidebook, with poetic and allusory reviews, to the courtesans and brothels of the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter in Edo. This district served “as a kind of cultural salon where samurai and townsman culture could interact, and the quarter was able to transmit this culture to a wider world thanks to burgeoning links with the... More