Japanese Poetry: 'The Uta'.

Waley (Arthur, Translator)

Japanese Poetry: 'The Uta'.

Description: FIRST EDITION OF THESE TRANSLATIONS, frontispiece showing calligraphic manuscript of 'Kokin Shu', pp. 110, crown 8vo, original grey wrappers, a little worn at foot of backstrip with some short splits at joint-ends, a little rubbed to bottom-left corner of front, tiny hole to right-margin of front, inside front-cover with ticket of Japanese bookshop, good

Publication Details: Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1919

Notes: An important book, the first volume of Waley's translations from the Japanese; there is an emphasis on grammar and technique that was alienating to some of the readership of his popular translations of Chinese poetry the year before. The wrappers issue is the true first edition, preceding its counterpart in cloth by a few months (the latter not appearing until the beginning of the following year).