NOGAMI, Yaeko 野上弥生子.

Original autograph working manuscript of the first two postwar parts of Meiro 迷路 [The Labyrinth].

Two parts: 466; 435 leaves (256 x 181 mm.), each written on one side of each leaf, composed on Iwanami shoten’s genkōyōshi 原稿用紙 (200-character manuscript paper), numbered erratically by hand. [Japan]: before October 1948.

Nogami (1885-1985) was one of the major pre- and post-World War II writers, in Japan and Meiro is widely regarded as one of Japan’s finest postwar novels. Nogami “was a naturally prolific writer who also enjoyed an extraordinarily long career…The Labyrinth (Meiro)…is certainly her most complex and ambitious work of fiction, a detailed picture of the doubts and dilemmas of leftist intellectuals in the prewar and war years and one that casts light on the process that changed her own image from that of a reclusive apolitical writer to that of a high-profile public figure and Communist activist at the end of her long life.”–from Maya & Anthony Mortimer’s Introduction to their translation of The Labyrinth (Brill: 2014), p. ix (& see the entire Introduction for an excellent summary of the plot and discussion of the novel — although, their bibliographical skills are inadequate).

The writing and publication history of this work is rather complex. A few chapters of what became Meiro appeared in Chūō Kōron in 1936 and 1937, but due to the changing political scene in Japan with the suppression of pacifism and dissent, it became unwise to publish more. After the war, Nogami resumed her work on the novel, now free of fear of censorship, substantially reworking and revising the prewar texts and greatly lengthening and completing the novel. The first two parts (which had appeared before the war) and were now greatly revised and published in two volumes in October and December 1948 by Iwanami shoten 岩波書店 (WorldCat accession numbers 835230819 & 835230884). These two volumes contained reworkings of the prewar texts.

Nogami went on to complete the novel, publishing the remaining four parts and publishing them in 27 installments in the intellectual monthly magazine Sekai 世界, from January 1949 to October 1956, under the provisional title Ejima Munemichi 江島宗通. Each of the four parts was published individually in book form as well. The work finally appeared in its final form in 1958 after Nogami “welded together” the six parts, with chapter divisions modified and renamed, under the title Meiro. It was awarded the prestigious Yomiuri Literature Prize in the same year.

We offer the autograph working manuscripts of the first two postwar parts of one of the major postwar Japanese novels. They contain numerous additions, deletions, and reworkings throughout the manuscript in the hand of the author. Additionally, there are many editorial remarks and corrections in red ink, along with instructions to the printer. The second part contains many pasted-in slips of paper with corrected text.

In 1948, Nogami was elected to the Japan Academy of Arts and in 1971 was awarded the Order of Culture, one of Japan’s highest honors for cultural achievement.

In fine condition. A few early leaves have slight defects around margins, not touching text. Carefully preserved in 12 folders.