Small Exhibition “From Our Rare Book Collection” (August 2016)

This month’s book to be displayed is “Japan: an account, geographical and historical, from the earliest period at which the islands composing this empire were known to Europeans, down to the present time, and the expedition fitted out in the United States, etc.,” published in New York and London in 1852.

At a time when the U.S. fleet’s Japan expedition plans were attracting greater interest in the West, the author Charles MacFarlane (1799-1858) compiled this book, which provides a comprehensive account of Japan and the Japanese people based on many works authored by other foreign nationals who visited Japan, including Engelbert Kämpfer (1651-1716), Vasiliy Mikhaylovich Golovnin (1776-1831), and Carl Peter Thunberg (1743-1828).

  • frontispiece and title page of Japan: an account, geographical and historical

Outline

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