The American Oriental Society and the First Japanese Book Printed in the United States (1855).

• Author: Kornicki, Peter
• Position: "Japanese Botany: Being a Facsimile of a Japanese Book with Introductory Notes and Translations" by Joseph Wilson Jr. - Report

At the inaugural meeting of the American Oriental Society in 1842, the first president, John Pickering (1777-1846), addressed the question of the scope of the new society. He was an accomplished linguist who knew Hebrew, Turkish, and Arabic, and he defined as the field of inquiry "the history, languages, literature, and general characteristics of the various people, both civilized and barbarous, who are usually classed under the somewhat indefinite name of Oriental nations." In a magisterial survey of the field, he included Mongolian, Manchu, Korean, and Japanese as well as Chinese and many other languages and cultures; for Japan, he drew upon an essay on the Japanese language by Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796-1866), who had lived on Deshima as the resident doctor from 1823 to 1829, and referred to him as "the learned Dr. Siebold." (1) It was evident, then, that the American Oriental Society was open to the study of East Asia from the outset, and that included Japan.

Sure enough, the second issue of JAOS in 1844 included two articles on China, one by John Pickering himself on paper money in China and another by William Whitwell Greenough (1818-1899) on population and trade in China. (2) A few years later, in 1853, the Sanskritist Edward Elbridge Salisbury (1814-1901), in a brief note on Commodore Perry's expedition to Japan, expressed the hope that "it may contribute to enlarge our knowledge of that great Empire, all we know of which, at present, only excites the desire to know more." (3) In fact, in 1851 two articles on Japan had already appeared in JAOS. The first was a lengthy review, by the polymath William Wadden Turner (1810-1859), of a Japanese novel that had been translated into German by August Pfizmaier (1808-1887), and Turner included a lithographic reproduction of one of the original illustrations; he, too, was familiar with the writings of von Siebold. The second article was by Samuel Wells Williams (1812-1884), an American missionary in Canton who supervised the printing press of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Williams's essay was on the Japanese syllabaries and, as we shall see, he was well qualified to write it. What was striking, though, was that it made use of a font of katakana type, which he had had made in New York while on home leave: this enabled him to present and explain the katakana syllabary in print. (4)

Shortly after these promising beginnings, the J.B. Lippincott Company of Philadelphia published a reproduction of a Japanese book. This curious and now rare book is both undated and anonymous, but, as evidence cited below shows conclusively, it was printed in 1855. It bears the title Japanese Botany: Being a Facsimile of a Japanese Book with Introductory Notes and Translations (hereafter Japanese Botany) and consists both of reproduced Japanese text and of a partial translation. What was curious about this book was the fact that it was made to look like a Japanese block-printed book, with Japanese-style covers, fukurotoji [phrase omitted] binding, and a title slip (daisen [phrase omitted]) on the back cover (from the Western perspective) (fig. 1).

It is remarkable that Lippincott was able in this way to reproduce not only the content of a Japanese book but also its physical appearance, but why did Lippincott undertake it at all? In view of the fact that the Convention of Kanagawa (also known as the Treaty of Peace and Amity) between the United States and Japan was signed on March 31, 1854, as a consequence of the expedition to Japan led by Commodore Matthew Perry, the obvious assumption is that the publication of this book had something to do with Perry's mission, but what exactly was the connection? Who in America had the ability to translate Japanese into English and why did the title draw attention to botany?

This book poses many problems, but the problem of the date is easily solved. It must have been published in 1855. The British Library copy bears a red date stamp "29 NO 55," indicating that it was accessioned on or before 29 November 1855, and the bookseller C. Murquardt of Brussels advertised the book in his monthly list of October 1855. (5) Furthermore, Japanese Botany was reviewed in the Daily National Intelligencer of Washington, DC at the end of August 1855, in The Horticulturalist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste in the December issue of 1855, and in JAOS too, in 1855. (6) Lastly, the publisher's name is given on the imprint page of Japanese Botany as J.B. Lippincott & Co. of 20 North Fourth Street, Philadelphia (fig. 2). In 1855 the firm changed its name from Lippincott, Grambo & Co. to J.B. Lippincott & Co., having moved to 20 North Fourth Street the previous year. The year of publication was therefore indisputably 1855, and the Lippincott ledgers record that five hundred copies had been printed by July 2, 1855, of which two hundred copies were then bound. (7) The fate of these two hundred copies will be considered below.

On the question of authorship, there is only a katakana inscription on the imprint page, which reads [phrase omitted] (presumably "Wilson") (fig. 2). All three reviews, however, identify the author as Dr. Joseph Wilson Jr., and they mention that he had participated in the Perry expedition: that information is not contained anywhere within the book, so the three reviewers were evidently relying upon other sources.

In all probability, since Samuel Wells Williams, the author of the JAOS article on the Japanese syllabaries, was back in Canton in 1855, there was not one person in North America who was able to read the Japanese text apart from Joseph Wilson himself. At first sight, therefore, it seems to make no sense whatsoever to publish a text that nobody could read, even if it was accompanied by a partial translation. But this was 1855, and Perry had just returned triumphantly from his expedition to Japan, so Japan was certainly newsworthy. What is more, as the reviews showed, the illustrations afforded other reasons for welcoming the publication of this book.

Japanese Botany has been neglected ever since it was published apart from a handful of reviews, but as the first Japanese book published in the United States, indeed the first Japanese book printed outside Japan, it is of no small interest. In this article I consider its significance both as a reproduced Japanese book and as a textbook for learners of Japanese. First, we need to examine how Japanese books, including the book reproduced in Japanese Botany, reached the United States in the middle of the nineteenth century; second, we need to unravel the connection with the Perry Expedition and establish how Wilson managed to learn Japanese; and third, we need to address, as far as possible, remaining questions, for example, why the reviews focused on the botany rather than the Japanese, and why the impact of the book was so slight.

SHOPPING FOR BOOKS IN JAPAN

It was in the Nara period (710-784) that Japanese books began to travel beyond the shores of Japan, mostly in the form of books written by Japanese authors in literary Chinese that were taken to China or Korea by Japanese monks or students. Japanese books first reached Europe in the early seventeenth century, or possibly the late sixteenth, brought back by Europeans who traveled to Japan. (8) On the other hand, no Japanese books are known to have reached the United States until the nineteenth century. Yale accessioned two Japanese woodblock-printed books in 1868 and began collecting Japanese books in the early 1870s, well before any other American university was interested in collecting Japanese books. (9) There can be no doubt, though, that when the ships of Perry's expedition returned to America in 1855 a number of individuals had Japanese books in their possession. This is clear from the official Narrative of the Expedition.

Francis Hawks, who was the author of the Narrative, had not accompanied Perry to Japan but he evidently had access to Perry's manuscript journal and official correspondence as well as the journals and diaries of several other officers, including the diary of Samuel Wells Williams, who had acted as Perry's interpreter in Japan. Hawks claimed to have read every word of his Narrative aloud to Perry and stated that the text had had Perry's approval before being passed to the printer. His anonymous preface was followed by a statement signed by Perry:

The Narrative here presented of the Japan Expedition has been prepared under my supervision and at my request, from materials furnished by me, and is authentic. I present it as my official report, and am alone responsible for the statement of facts it contains. (10) Since some of those materials no longer survive and the rest are dispersed, we have no choice but to take Hawks's account on trust. (11)

The prime purpose of the Perry expedition was, of course, to come to an understanding with the Japanese government. Nevertheless, Perry also had other purposes in mind. While Perry was in Canton, he issued new orders to his squadron, which included "Departments for observation," in other words, aspects of Japan to be carefully observed by the squadron's officers and men; these included scientific matters such as botany as well as "philology and ethnology." (12) In addition, there was a hunger for souvenirs from Japan. Perry's first visit in July 1853 was a brief one. The New York merchant Thomas Walsh, who was trading in Canton, met Perry and his officers on several occasions there and noted with disappointment in a letter home that, "There was only one landing, the one of ceremony, and very little communication--so no curiosities were obtained." (13) The second visit in March 1854, however, was a different matter. Three weeks of negotiations resulted in the signing of the Convention of Kanagawa and Perry's fleet withdrew to visit the two ports that had been opened to American ships, Shimoda and Hakodate. On April 18, 1854...