Gratitude to the Japan Foundation for Awarding the Special Prizes

I am surprised at how fast time flies when I think back to over 30 years ago, when Peter Kornicki and I were the recipients of the Japan Foundation Special Prizes. It was 1992 when Early Japanese Books in Cambridge University Library : a catalogue of the Aston, Satow, and von Siebold collections (Cambridge University Press), which we compiled, received the Japan Foundation Special Prizes. Originally, the Cambridge University Library contained a collection of about 10,000 volumes of Japanese classics collected by diplomat Ernest Mason Satow and bequeathed to the library via William George Aston. Former University Librarian Eric Ceadel attempted to catalogue the works, but this did not come to fruition due to his sudden death. I myself had visited the UK in 1984 to carry out an exhaustive bibliographic survey of the Japanese classics held in the country when I had a chance meeting with Peter, who had just returned from Japan in the autumn of that year to serve as a lecturer at Cambridge University. We agreed to produce a completely new academic catalogue together, and with a visiting professor grant from the Japan Foundation, I was able to revisit the UK in 1986. Subsequently, the catalogue was published in Japanese by the Cambridge University Press in 1991. I was greatly pleased as an individual engaged in basic academic research that our humble work, which required a tremendous amount of time and effort, was thus given the great honour of being awarded the Japan Foundation Special Prize. I fondly remember our enjoyment on the day of the award ceremony, when we decided on the spur of the moment to exchange each other's speeches, written respectively in Japanese and English, with me reading the English and Peter reading the Japanese. Furthermore, our invitation to the Imperial Palace for an audience with Their Majesties the Emperor and Empress at that time is an honour I shall never forget for the rest of my life.

HAYASHI Nozomu

（Original text in Japanese）

Awards and Special Prizes: Recipients List 1973 - 1995