The Era of the Complete Works of Japanese Literature: Reading the Postwar History of Publishing Culture

2018/06/26

It is fair to say that the education of the baby boomer generation, as well as those from the wartime and postwar generations, was nurtured by complete collections of Japanese and world literature. Even today, I hear that international students researching Japanese literature and culture use them as a fountain of knowledge. The purpose of this book is to record the flow of these literary collections and position them within the history of publishing culture.

One often hears stories of spending vast amounts of time and money collecting basic materials for writing, but in the case of this book, while time was certainly spent, the financial burden was small. This is because the prices of used literary collections have plummeted. While this was helpful in one sense, it mostly left me feeling lonely. Instead of financial issues, the problem that surfaced was securing a large enough space to inspect these massive sets of complete works one after another. The reason I came to my office almost every day, sometimes even on weekends, was not because I was a diligent researcher, but because I needed a place to stack the books. This book was created by spending time and space—not in a metaphorical sense, but in a literal, physical sense!

While purchasing literary collections and related materials one after another at secondhand bookstores, there were unexpected encounters. Some enthusiasts boast that the joy of used books lies in the traces left by previous owners; one collection I found appeared to have belonged to a person during their student days who later made a brilliant transition from a high-ranking official to a governor and then a member of the Diet. A delivery slip from a local bookstore addressed to the individual was tucked inside. Suddenly, an unapproachable member of the elite felt very relatable.

I am as indebted to libraries across the country as I am to secondhand bookstores. Different editions of literary collections are like a quagmire; no matter how many you collect, anxiety remains. Whenever I visit literary museums as a hobby, I always visit the local library to look at the shelves of literary collections. I was deeply moved by libraries that preserved books with their original slipcases and belly bands intact, or those that held duplicate copies of different editions of literary collections if they were by local authors.

Company histories and publication catalogs from publishers are essential for this type of research. Detailed company histories were indispensable for verifying the descriptions and conjectures in this book. I was even able to correct some parts of the descriptions in those vast histories, but that was only possible because each company poured love into its publications and recorded every detail, large and small. This book stands upon the love poured into books by publishers, libraries, secondhand bookstores, and others.

The Era of the Complete Works of Japanese Literature: Reading the Postwar History of Publishing Culture

Kenji Tasaka (Author)

Keio University Press

296 pages, 2,400 yen (excluding tax)

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time of writing.