BIBLIOGRAPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The following list of books does not represent the sources and literature used in revising the text and preparing the supplementary part of the present volume, but is intended solely for the convenience of the reader who would naturally confine his attention to works written in English.
There is hardly a work on general Japanese bibliography which can be compared with that great Chinese bibliography, the "Bibliotheca Sinica," by Henri Cordier. Fr. von Wenckstern's "Bibliography of the Japanese Empire," London, 1895, gives, with few comments, works written only in European languages, and covers the period between 1859 and 1893. It also contains a facsimile-reprint of Léon Pagès's "Bibliographie japonaise depuis le XV^e siècle jusqu'a 1859." As to articles written on Japan in the English and American periodicals, "Poole's Index" may be consulted with profit.
Of works of general information on Japan, the first eight volumes ("Japan: Its History, Art and Literature") of Captain Frank Brinkley's "Oriental Series," in twelve volumes, London and Boston, 1902-1903, perhaps deserve the first mention. The work is eminently free from both the superficiality of the tourist and the well-meaning but not harmless prejudices of many a missionary. The author's thorough acquaintance with men and things of Japan, where he has lived for more than thirty years and is editor of perhaps the best informed and most fair-minded English journal, the Japan Mail, has enabled him to give an intimate view of the history and the national life of the Japanese. The facile style of the author also adds greatly to the value of his work for popular reading. This work grew out of the author's edition of "Japan," containing essays on various topics originally written by great native authorities but much revised and rendered into English by Brinkley. A new edition of this latter work ("Japan," Boston, 1905), has been published by J. B. Millet & Co., bringing the account down to the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War. Captain Brinkley also has an admirable article on Japan in the twenty-ninth volume of the "Encyclopædia Britannica." For the student's ready reference, J. J. Rein's "Japan: Travels and Researches Undertaken at the Cost of the Prussian Government," English translation, New York, 1884, and his "Industries of Japan, Together with an Account of Its Agriculture, Forestry and Commerce," English translation, New York, 1889, are very useful. B. H. Chamberlain's "Things Japanese," originally published in Tokyo in 1890 but now in its fourth edition (New York, 1902), is a dictionary of all subjects of interest, and contains bibliographical references for many of the subjects treated. The work, however, is in need of further revision. The same author has compiled with W. B. Mason a "Hand-book for Travelers in Japan," which is now in its seventh edition (London, 1903). W. E. Griffis's "Mikado's Empire" at first appeared in New York in 1876, but, owing to the absence of better works of this nature, has been so popular that it is in its tenth edition (New York, 1903). It was once unrivaled in its comprehensiveness, but has never been considered a work upon which the student could rely for objective truths regarding Japan. E. W. Clement's little book, "A Hand-book of Modern Japan," Chicago, 1903, and Henry Dyer's "Dai Nippon, A Study in National Evolution," London and New York, 1904, are both useful when used critically. Alfred Stead has edited "Japan by the Japanese: A Survey by the Highest Authorities," London and New York, 1904.
In the field of general history several older works have been superseded by newer ones, all of which, however, leave vastly much to be desired. David Murray's "Japan," New York, 1894 (in the "Story of the Nations" series), is more narrative than analytical or interpretative. Max von Brandt has a brief survey in the second volume of the "History of the World: A Survey of Man's Record," edited by H. F. Helmolt, English translation, London and New York, 1904. Among works on different periods of history, the present editor's "Early Institutional Life of Japan," Tokyo and New York, 1903, covers the period between 500 and 900 A. D., and James Murdoch and Isoh Yamagata's "History of Japan during the Century of Early Foreign Intercourse (1542-1651)," Tokyo, 1904, takes up the important period of Japan's earliest European relations under the feudal régime. For the beginning of the foreign relations in the nineteenth century, F. O. Adams's "History of Japan to 1871," in two volumes, London, 1874-1875, Richard Hildreth's "Japan as It Was and Is," Boston, 1855, and the lives of "M. C. Perry" and "Townsend Harris" by W. E. Griffis, Boston, 1897 and 1895, may be recommended. I. Nitobe's "Intercourse between the United States and Japan," extra volume 8 of the "Johns Hopkins University Studies in History and Political Science," Baltimore, 1891, is useful. Coming down to a later period of history, the accounts of the Chino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 by "Vladimir" (the "China-Japan War," New York, 1896) and F. W. Eastlake and Y. Yamada (the "Heroic Japan," Tokyo, 1896) may be mentioned. Brinkley's large work, of course, covers history, as well as arts, literature, customs and manners, and religion. For a still more recent period, one may consult the present editor's "Russo-Japanese Conflict: Its Causes and Issues," London and Boston, 1904. As to the progress of the Russo-Japanese War, we have yet to look for its authentic history.
Among authors on Old Japan, or, that side of the national life in which the old civilization has not been greatly affected by the inroad of European influences, no writer has shown a greater aptitude to grasp its spirit or has presented it in more charming English than the late prolific author, Lafcadio Hearn, in his "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," Boston, 1894, "Out of the East," Boston, 1895, "Kokoro: Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life," Boston, 1896, "Gleanings in Buddha-fields," Boston, 1897, "Exotics and Retrospectives," Boston, 1898, "In Ghostly Japan," Boston, 1899, "Shadowings," Boston, 1900, "A Japanese Miscellany," Boston, 1901, "Kwaidan," Boston, 1904, "Romance of the Milky Way," Boston, 1905, "Japan: An Interpretation," New York, 1904, and others. Miss Alice M. Bacon's "A Japanese Interior," Boston and New York, 1893, "Japanese Girls and Women," new edition, Boston, 1902, and "In the Land of the Gods," Boston, 1905, as well as G. W. Knox's "Japanese Life in Town and Country" ("Our Asiatic Neighbor" series), New York, 1904, are recommended. For other sides than are so well described by these works, the reader must again turn to Captain Brinkley's great work, and also to articles in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan published at Tokyo since 1872.