Japanese books

Late in the 19th Century, a Japanese book publisher, Hasegawa, started to produce books in English printed onto crepe paper and bound with silk. 

These beautiful books, illustrated with woodblock prints, were printed in small runs and one set was of folk and fairy tales. A recent auction resulted in a winning bid for two of these books one of which is insribed to Margery from her Aunt Grace with a date of December 1908. For crepe paper books that are over a hundred years old, their survival is a minor miracle and the stunning illustrations with their atmospheric colour are delightful. The two copies we have are The Boy Who Drew Cats and The Matsuyama Mirror. Wouldn't it be fascinating to find out more about their particular history?