日本風俗 (Nihon Fuuzoku). by (JAPANESE COSTUME). ‘T. N.’

3 vols (each 115 × 80 mm), each with 26 coloured woodcut illustrations, each full-page, except the first in each volume which fold out over 4 pages. Stitched in original decorative wrappers, preserved in the original pictorial paper sleeve. The fragile sleeve with small tear at head on lower cover, the three volumes in remarkably fresh state.

Presumed first or sole edition of this bilingual English-Japanese picture book showing the costumes of men and women of the various ranks of orders of Japanese society. It includes aristocratic and military subjects, as well as servants, scholars, labourers and craftspeople. The English preface states ‘These books are not only designed to please children, but to show the manners and customs of the ancient and modern people of Nippon. The fine illustrations afford an important aid in this respect. It is through the eye that understanding itself is most quickly reached’.
It was printed by the Poole Women’s College in Osaka. Arthur William Poole, after whom the Osaka Women’s School was renamed in 1890, was the first Anglican Bishop of Japan. The school had been founded as the Church Missionary Society school and its head teacher from 1890 to 1928 was the Durham-born missionary educator, Katherine Tristram, one of the early female graduates of the University of London. When she was appointed ‘there were at the school two other British women apart from Tristram, as well as eight Japanese teachers, including four women, and there were forty-nine pupils, of whom twenty-three were Christians’ (Oxford DNB).