PARKES (Sir Harry). Reports on the Manufacture of Paper in Japan.1871

London: Printed by Harrison and Sons, First edition, tall folio (332 x 214 mm), [2], 24, [2]p., 8 coloured plates showing 20 illustrations (two of the plates are folding), printed sewn paper covers as issued, old horizontal middle fold, fragile, the front cover is almost detached, with small creases and some small chips to page edges at binding; some foxing and staining to covers, with the rear cover darkened and a little grubby. Occasional and minor only scattered foxing to pages. Corner turns to several of the pages. A pencil note to rear cover and to front. Otherwise, internally clean, and bar the cover, the stitched pages appear to be holding well. This important report provides one of the most detailed accounts available of the Japanese paper industry at the time. It came after Prime Minister William Gladstone in 1869 had requested a report on Japanese washi (paper) and papermaking from the British embassy in Japan. Parkes and his team in the embassy collected over 400 sheets of handmade paper, which were sent back to Britain. Today, the main parts of the paper collection reside in the Paper Conservation Laboratory of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Economic Botany Collection of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Wikipedia states Kew later sent duplicate samples to Glasgow, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide in 1879, which have since been lost. The report enjoyed a revival when it was reissued in facsimile by Henry Morris's Bird & Bull Press in 1984, after British typographer, Hans Schmoller, the Head of Typography and design at Penguin Books from 1949 to 1976, had been informed of the collection in the 1970s after it had been all but forgotten. The first three plates are bound in after page one of which the first is a large fold out plate, with four numbered illustrations, after the plates, the report provides detail on Japan's paper industry, from manufacturing processes: steaming the paper mulberry, boiling the "sosori", etc, with further illustrations bound in after p. 4., with 14 numbered illustrations spread out over five plates, the last of which is another fold out plate, this follows on p. 6 with further information on types of paper, including the manufacture of oil paper for rain coats. Tables, with lengthy details cover types of paper and location where they are manufactured, a 2-page table list of Samples of Paper - the examples referred to were the ones that Parkes had organised and purchased in Japan and had shipped back to England - their use, and the price, in sterling, he had paid for them. The final table extends over 3-3/4 pages and lists 139 samples, their Japanese names, quality, province and price paid. Vanishingly scarce in the original and with all the plates present, with only six UK institutional holdings recorded by JISC.