Unsun Karuta

(Ashiya, Japan: Tekisui Art Museum at the Yamaguchi Culture Hall, 1967).

Japanese Miniature Book. 3 9/16 x 2 11/16 inches. [ii], 35, [1 blank] pp. Text in Japanese, 8 text figures, 13 full page black-and-white illustrations, 3 folding plates printed with brick-red ink on Japanese-style paper; text clean, unmarked. Textured white paper over boards, printed gold-paper spine and front cover labels, illustrated end-papers; binding square and tight, smudge on front cover. Comes in a paste-paper-covered slip case with a printed paper spine label; slip case has a small nick near the head of the spine, some minor rubbing, else fine. Also included is an 8-page (last a blank) stapled pamphlet, in English, discussing the introduction of playing cards to Japan and their adoption within Japanese culture, a brief English summary of the text in Japanese. Glen Dawson's copy, INSCRIBED to him, "To Mr. Dowson, Oct. 4. '73, Osaka, Yoshio Nakao." SCARCE. GKK1020b-008. Very Good.

FIRST EDITION. Keizaburo Yamaguchi was a Japanese art historian; here he relates how playing cards were imported into Japan in the seventeenth-century, and then explains how and where these cards were adapted by the Japanese and how a popular social movement grew up around them. Well-illustrated. Published by the Tekisui Art Museum at the Yamaguchi Culture Hall. SCARCE.

Not found in my bibliographical references. Two copies Worldcat: Indiana University and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.