Today’s episode of Beautiful Books looks at the Folio Society’s edition of ‘Japanese
Tales’, a collection of 170 quaint, comic and curious tales that delve into Medieval
Japanese culture.
The binding of this edition is both deluxe and distinctive, it’s a large sized ‘fine
edition’ that is slightly above a regular edition in quality.
The book features a beautiful blocked wrap-around image on a tactile blue and green woven cloth
that almost shimmers.
The slipcase has been die-cut so that the silver moth stamped on the case literally
gazes through the case at the silvery moon that is on the front cover of the book.
The top page edge block is silver gilt, but not the sides, the book has a red ribbon bookmark,
and the endpapers are illustrated with a printed Japanese wave design.
The paper used for this edition is the thick, creamy Abbey Wove often favoured by the Folio
Society, and the book has been crafted the Italian LEGO S.p.A, a family-owned enterprise
with almost 120 years of fine printing and publishing behind them.
The book is very thoughtfully illustrated by Yuko Shimizu, a Japanese artist located
in New York, with illustrations that were specially commissioned for this Folio edition.
Her artwork reflects the traditional style of art that matches the time period of the
stories, while also retaining a contemporary modern flair.
The illustrations are beautiful and really glow.
These stories in the collection are not your typical Japanese folktales.
These are well-researched and legitimate old medieval stories that I imagine are even uncommonly
known in Japan today.
The tales themselves are gathered by Royall Tyler, a noted scholar and translator of Japanese
literature, from a number of different sources.
The stories vary in length from a single paragraph to several pages, and cover a great range
of themes - Tyler has arranged the tales loosely by topic, with four in each category.
The book includes eight full-color ink and brush illustrations, and several grey block
illustrations that appear alongside the topical headings.
It’s important to note that the original collection volume contains more tales than
are in the Folio Society edition.
Royall Tyler’s first collection of these tales originally contained 220 tales, and
50 of these were dropped for the Folio Society edition.
The introductory essay – which is excellent, by the way, as it provides very valuable context
for the tales – is the same introduction that you will find in the trade editions,
except that a few sentences that refer to the missing tales have also been deleted.
Unfortunately, there is no reason given for the missing stories, which I find a bit annoying,
but since the collection itself was originally taken from a wide array of sources, you don’t
get the feeling that the shorter Folio collection has been abridged in any way when you read
it.
It’s a lovely book, and I absolutely recommend it if you have any interest in folklore, or
Asian medieval history, despite the higher than usual price.
For collectors, it is also worth noting that this book was produced in a much smaller print
run than usual – with only 2000 copies printed in comparison to the usual run of three to
five thousand, so when it goes out of print it is likely to be very scarce on the second
hand market.
If you are looking for other fine volumes in this genre of medieval Japanese tale, there
are actually not many alternatives for collectors.
This style of tale was introduced to Western audiences by the Japanese publisher Takejiro
Hasegawa who published French and English language editions of these Japanese tales
printed on a crepe-like paper and illustrated with exquisite Japanese wood block colour
illustrations from 1885 through the mid-1920s.
The most famous (and expensive) of these collections is a small 5-volume set of stories translated
by Lafcadio Hearn that Hasegawa published in the 1920s, which routinely costs between
$2000-3000 for the set in fine condition.
Easton Press also released a Deluxe Limited Edition that is a facsimile of the original
deluxe Green Willow and Other Japanese Fairy Tales, a selection of 38 tales and legends
collected by Grace James and illustrated by Warwick Goble.
The first deluxe edition of 1910 was limited to only 500 copies, while the now out of print
Easton Press leather-bound facsimile was limited to 1200 copies with 40 tipped in illustrations.
There was a much cheaper Calla Editions copy of this title as well, although that one is
also now out of print.
On the other hand, if you are just looking for a cheap version of the Royall Tyler tales
to read, there are many non-collectible trade editions available, which do also have the
bonus of usually including all 220 tales.
The Pantheon fairy tale and folklore library, for example, does a nice edition in paperback
or kindle, which even has some black and white illustrations - and this would be a cheaper
way to get a feel for the stories before splurging on a fine edition.
I personally am also looking out for a nice copy of another Royall Tyler collection called
‘The Tale of the Heike’, which is known as Japan’s equivalent of the Iliad.
As always, thanks for watching, I’d love to hear from you in the comments, and I look
forward to next time.
Bye!