Eight columns per page, columns & margins scored in blind, 25 leaves of text (complete), including inside of lower wrapper. Small 4to (180 x 160 mm.), orig. wrappers (detchoso binding in which the leaves are folded, stacked on each other, & then glued together near the crease on the outer side) of dark brown patterned paper (leaves somewhat wormed). [Japan]: at end (in trans.): “Copied 27 September 1195.”

This is a very remarkable manuscript: a Sanskrit – Chinese dictionary, written in Siddham and Chinese characters, composed by “Quanzehn” (not to be confused with the Quanzhen School of Taoism). On the final page of this manuscript we find... More

Five-page woodcut of Shaka & his Protectors. Five columns per page, 17 characters per column, each column & page framed with silver borders. 87 pages. Tall narrow 8vo (260 x 98 mm.), orig. decorated “wallet binding” of semi-stiff wrappers, with a pale-brown background (koiro; clove-stained), heightened with gold & silver speckles and a mist of gold (kasumibiki), all preserved & attached to the orig. “wallet-style” semi-stiff outer wrapper employing the same decoration. Nara: written on the final page “28 June 1383.”

An extremely rare and very beautiful early sutra, printed at Nara in 1383. It has been printed on highest-quality thick paper (gampi or mulberry fibers), and printed in bold... More

Printed in Chinese with Japanese reading marks. Five full-page woodcuts in the text. Eight parts in 15 vols. Large 8vo, orig. wrappers stained with persimmon juice (wrappers rubbed), orig. block-printed title labels on upper covers, later stitching. [Kyoto]: Preface dated 1575; Murakami Heirakuji, 1642.

A very early Japanese edition; the first edition was published in China in 1575. Yixue rumen was the work of Li Chan (fl. 1573-1619), a Ming dynasty physician. An influential introductory Chinese medical textbook, it is itself a condensation of the important Gu Jin Yi Tong [Old and Modern Medical Generalities] by Xu Chunfu, published in 1556 in 100... More

12 vols. 8vo, orig. brown wrappers (upper cover of Vol. I & lower cover of final vol. somewhat worn), orig. block-printed title labels on upper covers, new stitching. [Japan]: from the colophon leaf in final volume: “Mei shou edition. 1623.”

First edition to be published in Japan of Ming yi lei an, originally published in China in 1525. This is an important work, as it contains one of the largest compilations of case histories — more than 2400 — in Chinese medicine. Jiang (1503-65), gathered here the texts from earlier classic collections of medical cases from the Qin (221-206 B.C.) to Ming dynasties... More

Ten columns per page, 20 characters per line. 22; 21; 19 leaves, one blank leaf (bound at front). Three parts in one. Large 8vo (280 x 200), slightly later decorative wrappers (rubbed) with landscape images in silver & gold on indigo-dyed paper, new stitching. [Japan: Afterward dated 1399; printed, according to Kawase, “mid-Keicho” or 1605].

A very rare movable type edition of what is “sometimes called the first comprehensive history of Buddhism, [which] puts the emphasis on the eastward transmission through India, China, and Japan.”–Paul Groner, “The Eastward Flow of Buddhism and its Waterspouts, Springs, and Countercurrents: Ordinations and Precepts” in The Eastern Buddhist, Vol. 45, No. 1 &... More

205 pp. 8vo, attractive antique half-calf & marbled boards by Aquarius (first few leaves a little soiled, faint stain in upper inner corner throughout), spine nicely gilt, red morocco lettering piece on spine. [Imprint slip of Beddoes’s book pasted on at blank foot of title]: Bristol: Printed by Biggs & Cottle, for T.N. Longman & O. Rees, London, 1799.

The extremely rare “pre-print” of Davy’s earliest scientific writings; this is Davy’s first book, issued for private circulation and known in six copies only (BL, UCL; CU CtY, McGill, and the present copy). These essays by Davy were written for inclusion in Thomas Beddoes’s... More

81; 98 folding leaves. Ten parts in two vols. 8vo, orig. patterned wrappers, early woodblock-printed labels with manuscript text on upper covers. [China]: Cai Ruxian, Preface dated 1579.

An early collected edition of the poetry and prose of Qian Tao (365?-427), one of China’s greatest and most loved poets. He was brought up in the world of social ambition but could not tolerate the corruption of official life and withdrew from it, to go back to farming his modest fields and suffering the hardships of the peasantry. This is a rare book; WorldCat lists only the copy at Harvard-Yenching.

This edition has been edited by Tong Xiao (501-31), Crown Prince Zhaoming, who has also contributed a Preface. Tao’s poetry was somewhat neglected immediately following his death, and Tong’s editorship testifies to the high esteem in which Tao’s poetry was held by the sixth century. Xiao, a leading patron of literature, oversaw the compilation of Wen xuan [Selection of Refined Literature], the most influential of the early anthologies of literature. More

14 full-page woodcuts. 31 folding leaves. Large 8vo (309 x 200 mm.), orig. patterned wrappers (minor soiling), new stitching. Yongjusa Temple, on the slopes of Mount Hwasan, Korea: 1796.

An early Korean edition of a text that was very popular in that country, synthesizing Confucian ideals with Buddhist teachings. “Also known as Taebo pumo unjung kyong or simply as Unjung kyong, this Buddhist work on filial piety probably originated in China sometime in the fourth to sixth centuries as a response to Confucianist stress on that virtue. The spurious nature of the work was noticed by T’ang dynasty bibliographers…The Tun-huang manuscript copy in the British... More

Woodcut color-printed frontis. depicting Hososhin, the “smallpox god.” 24 folding leaves. 8vo, orig. orange wrappers, orig. block-printed title label on upper cover, new stitching. [Edo]: Preface dated 1849.

First edition of Kuwata’s most important book. Kuwata (1811-68), an Edo pediatrician, was one of the earliest Japanese doctors to introduce and popularize Western smallpox vaccination in Japan. He learned of the Western technique of vaccination from Otto Gottlieb Johann Mohnike (1814-87), who came to Japan in 1848 as the successor of von Siebold. Mohnike founded Japan’s first vaccination clinic in 1849 in Nagasaki. Earlier attempts at vaccination in Japan had failed due to... More

Three full-page woodcut illus. in the text. 49; 68; 57; 42; 23; 40 folding leaves. Eight parts in four vols. & two vols. of Addenda. 8vo, orig. wrappers, orig. block-printed title label on each upper cover (several placed on the wrong vols.), new stitching. Edo, Kyoto, Osaka: 1811.

First collected edition and very rare, with no copy in WorldCat. This edition gathers for the first time three important texts, hitherto unpublished (see below), by Ikeda on Chinese vaccination, along with the valuable two-volume Addenda. Ikeda (1734-1816), was a member of a prominent family of physicians, most famous for their smallpox treatment, using family secrets. He studied with Saimon-ge... More

Seven columns of text per page. 68; 72 folding leaves. Two vols. Large 8vo (285 x 206 mm.), orig. (or very early) dark thick wrappers (strengthened & with new endpapers), new stitching. From the colophon: Kyoto: Ekirin Hirai, 1597.

The setsuyoshu, the essential Japanese dictionary, “one of the mainstays of the publishing industry and…probably the most likely book to be found in a house of few books.”–Kornicki, The Book in Japan, p. 248. Widely used from the 15th century through the early Meiji period; there were more than 500 editions in many styles and formats, and many with additions. All early editions are extremely rare, as... More

56 (of 61) finely painted depictions in rich colors of lips & tongues pasted-in, text written in Chinese. 8vo (280 x 203 mm.), orig. wrappers (wrappers somewhat soiled), stitched. [Japan]: mid-Edo?

Tongue and lip diagnosis has been a vital tool used in traditional Chinese medicine for both assessing the current health of a patient and providing a basis for prognosis. This finely illustrated manuscript contains 39 finely and vividly painted illustrations of the tongue and 17 of the mouth and lips in various states of health.

The first illustration, which is missing, depicted a healthy pair of lips. Present are the surrounding manuscript annotations describing the 12... More