A practical introduction to the study of Japanese writing (Moji No Shirube) . Second edition revised

Small folio, pp. viii,547, []3]; title page printed in red and black, Chinese and Japanese characters throughout; tables in the text; prelims a little spotted, else a very good, sound copy in original cream buckram lettered in black and red. Basil Hall Chamberlain (1850-1935) was a British academic and Japanologist. He was a professor of the Japanese language at Tokyo Imperial University and one of the foremost British Japanologists active in Japan during the late 19th century. He writes in his Introductory Notes: "Though dealing or rather because dealing with a subject usually considered extremely dry, the compiler of this Introduction has done his best to make it a 'live book'. Japanese is no dead language; its crabbed symbols serve every purpose of daily life to one of the most vivacious of modern nations. The solemn leading article, the skittish feuilleton, the advertiser's puff, the post-card, the cheap telegram, all these have now as familiar a home in Japan as in any Western land. To them the learner must have recourse, be he missionary, merchant, or diplomat, if his study of the language is to bear fruit in practice, though it is also no doubt true that the literature of an earlier growth must not be altogether neglected; for in Japan, as in Europe, the old order of ideas crops out here and there through the new, - forms in fact the basis on which the new stands. The exercises and extracts given in the present volume have been selected in accordance with these views. Utility alone has been considered; nothing has been conceded to antiquarian erudition, except in so far as it may help to light the practical student on his way.".…