Rose & Witch and Other Stories
San Francisco: Overland Publishing Company, 1925.
First Edition. Hardcover. This alluring 1925 book collects four tales by Mimei Ogawa (1882-1961), known today as the Hans Christian Andersen of Japan as well as the father of modern children's literature in Japan, publishing more than 1,200 fairy tales in his lifetime. Ogawa was the first president of the Japanese Association of Writers for Children, the recipient of the 1950 Japan Art Academy Prize and the Order of Culture in 1953, and his life and work serves as the focus of the Mimei Ogawa Literature Museum in Joetsu. His social and political beliefs as a humanist, anarchist, and socialist informed his writing as he penned literary and complex stories for children, departing from the simple morality tales for children popular in the Taisho Era. This 1925 San Francisco printing is the first English language edition of this charming collection of four stories by Ogawa, including the title story, "Rose and Witch," which was first published in 1910 in Japan as well as three other stories from later in his career, "The Rosy Finger," "The Day He Could Not Walk," and "Red Poison." Each story is introduced by a supremely lovely color illustration by Seison N. Yoshioka. This presentation-worthy first printing, gathering four tales by the Hans Christian Andersen of Japan, is sure to bloom and bewitch, in equal measure, on any shelf.
8 1/4" X 5 3/4". xvii, 88pp. Presents nicely in protective archival jacket. Wheat-colored cloth over boards, with upper board stamped with a rose dropping petals upon a toad, tree and mountain in background, in orange, black, and bronze, lettered in black to upper board and spine. Mild wear to binding, with some small, faint spots of soiling to cloth and bumping to extremities. A few stray spots of foxing to endpapers. A hint of spine at center of text block; binding is firm and sound. Pages are uniformly age-toned, with Japanese text pencilled out to plate facing "Red Poison," else unmarked. Very good. Item #16034
Price: $225.00