Ikkyū-banashi 一休はなし

Archive Unit
  • This material is held at
  • Reference
      GB 59 16055.c.38
  • Dates of Creation
      [1665-1680]
  • Language of Material
      Japanese
  • Physical Description
      1 volume Condition: Fair. No worm damage, but water stains in maki 3 and 4, and a few soiled folios. Impression: Atozuri, from worn blocks. Illustrations: A total of 1 double-page and 18 single-page sumizuri illustrations, distributed as follows: (maki 1) 5; (2) 4; (3) 3 single, 1 double; (4) 6. Many of the pictures have humorous connotations. Seals of ownership: Large square red seal, Kubota zōsho 久保田藏書, and small oblong red seal, [= 卯 ?] 山藏書, on first page of each former satsu. Manuscript notes: 2 folios of different paper have been inserted between maki 2 and 3. The first contains a passage from another work, elegantly written in late-Edo or early Meiji period, bound in upside-down.

Scope and Content

Variant title: Ikkyū monogatari 一休物語. Author/compiler: Unknown. Imprint: Rakuyō [Kyōto] , Nagata Chōbē, n.d. [Kanbun / Enpō period, c. 1665-80 ?] . Kanki on last line of fol. 32a, maki 4, reads: 洛陽錦小路 ／ 永田長兵衛開板. Description: 4 kan, formerly in 2 satsu, now stitched together in 1 satsu, within a chitsu case of thin board. (Maki 1) ff. 22; (2) ff. 21; (3) ff. 22; (4) ff. 32. 25.4 x 18.3 cm. Fukurotoji. Blockprint. Printing frame 20.9 x 16.4 cm. (average). Single-line borders, with fishtail design on hanshin. Hiragana-majiri text, with printed furigana, dakuten and kutōten. 11 lines to page, 23-25 characters to line. Renewed covers, horizontally streaked with brown and white. Renewed title slip of satsu 1 on left, with manuscript gedai: Ikkyū monogatari ... 一休物語 共二冊 ／ 壹ノ二. Title from naidai at head of each maki. Hashiragaki: 一休咄 + maki no. + folio no. Edition: Undated edition in 4 kan, 4 satsu, published at some time after the first dated edition of Kanbun 8 寛文八年 (1668) and probably before the 3-kan, 3-satsu edition of Genroku 13 元禄十三年 (1700). This undated edition by Nagata Chōbē is referred to in Nihon koten bungaku daijiten 日本古典文学大辞典, p. 183, col. 1, but without any attempt to assign a date of publication. Contents: A collection of witty and humorous anecdotes concerning the unconventional Zen monk Ikkyū 一休, also known as Sōjun 宗純, 1394-1481. Generally classed as a hanashi-bon 噺本, sometimes as a kana-zōshi, the work has an underlying serious tone, Buddhist in origin, as well as its light-hearted elements. The first 2 folios contain an unsigned preface.

Access Information

Not Public Record(s)

Unrestricted

Acquisition Information

Acquired by purchase, 11 May 1959.

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 5.Literature - fiction 国文-小説 f.Kana-zōshi 仮名草子

Bibliography

Nihon koten bungaku daijiten 日本古典文学大辞典, vol. 1, p. 182; Shinsen retsudentai shōsetsushi 新撰列伝体小説史, p. 128; Hanashi-bon taikei 噺本大系, vol. 3, pp. 3-62 (modern reprint of the Kanbun 8, 1668 edition); Kana-zōshi shūsei 仮名草子集成, vol. 3, pp. 505-14.