Racvyoxv 落葉集

Archive Unit
  • This material is held at
  • Reference
      GB 59 Or.59.b.11
  • Dates of Creation
      1598
  • Language of Material
      Japanese
  • Physical Description
      1 volume Condition: Fair. Title page soiled and damaged. Many folios stained and wormed. All damage carefully repaired by urauchi backing throughout. Top and bottom cropped. Impression: Type shows little sign of wear. Illustrations: No woodcuts. Decorative shield of the Jesuit Order engraved on title page, surrounded by a border of printer's ornaments. Similar ornaments passim throughout the book, including borders round each iroha heading. Seals of ownership: Oval red seal, Taikadō 待賈堂, on title page. Damaged red seal in an ornamental frame, 江戸四日市古今珍書僧達摩屋五一, on last folio (17b) of Shōgokuhen. Both are seals used by Darumaya Goichi 達摩屋五一 (=Iwamoto Kattōshi 岩本活東子), who was almost certainly responsible for re-covering the book and writing the gedai. Manuscript notes: Two additional ji, with furigana, in upper margin of fol. 28b of honmon.

Scope and Content

Alternative reading of title: Rakuyōshū. Author/compiler: Unknown. Imprint: IN COLLEGIO IAPO- / NICO SOCIETATIS / IESV. / Cum facultate Superiorum. / ANNO M. D. XCVIII. [=1598]. Description: 4 kan, formerly in 1 satsu, now rebound in 1 vol. western style. ff. [1a] (title page with imprint), [1b] (preface, simply headed jo 序), 62 (honmon, headed Rakuyōshū 落葉集), 23 (second part, headed Iroha jishū 色葉字集), 4 (appendix 1, headed Hyakkan narabini tōmyō no taigai 百官并唐名之大概), [2] , 17 (appendix 2, headed Shōgokuhen 小玉篇, preceded by a 2-folio mokuroku). 26 x 182 mm. Fukurotoji. Movable type, printed by the Jesuits at Nagasaki. Printing frame 232-234 x 159 mm. Single-line borders, with fishtail design on hanshin. Vertical rules between columns of text. Kanji (printed in gyōsho) and hiragana text (printed as furigana, with dakuten, beside kanji on left and right). Preface in hiragana-majiri. Mostly 8 lines to page, c. 15 characters to line, except for Iroha charactersshū (8-9) and Hyakkan ... (11 lines). Renewed buff front cover with renewed title slip on left, bearing manuscript gedai written in early Meiji period: Rakuyōshū kan 落葉集 完. Title from tobira (title page) and from naidai at head of honmon. Hashiragaki varies throughout volume. Bound in a modern western-style leather binding. Edition: First and only edition printed at the Jesuit Mission in Nagasaki. Contents: Dictionary of kanji and on compounds, the first components being arranged in iroha order. On reading on right and kun reading on left of each character. This main section is followed by a second section, headed Iroha jishū 色葉字集 and also arranged in iroha order, in which kanji are listed according to kun readings, with kun compounds, the kun reading being printed on the right and the on reading on the left of each character. These two main sections are followed by (1) a list of official Japanese and Chinese titles, 百官并唐名之大概, (2) the names of 68 Japanese provinces, 日本六十餘州, and (3) a final section, Shōgokuhen 小玉篇, in which kanji are classified by radicals with both on and kun readings.

Access Information

Not Public Record(s)

Unrestricted

Acquisition Information

Donated by (Sir) Ernest M. Satow 13 June 1885.

Other Finding Aids

Kenneth Gardner, Descriptive Catalogue of Japanese books in the British Library printed before 1700 (London and Tenri, 1993). C. Japanese works 和書 3. Language 言語 a. Dictionaries and script 辞書・字書

Bibliography

Nihon koten bungaku daijiten 日本古典文学大辞典, vol. 6, p. 196; The Jesuit mission press in Japan, 1591-1610, p. 35; Kirishitan-ban no kenkyū きりしたん版の研究, pp. 141-4; Kirishitan bunko, pp. 32-4; Keichō sannen Yasokai-ban Rakuyōshū 慶長三年耶蘇会版落葉集 - facsimile edition with introduction; see also bibliography in Kirishitan-ban no kenkyū, p. 215.