Miyake: Japan in English Books for Boys and Girls, 1819–1935

Featuring Japan in the early nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century, this work examines how the specific images of Japan and the Japanese developed among young readers in English-speaking countries.

How do we acquire specific images about other countries? In part, they are formed through unintentional childhood familiarization. This facsimile reprint collection of fourteen juvenile books in English—featuring Japan in the early nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century—examines how the specific images of Japan and the Japanese developed among young readers in English-speaking countries. It includes Isaac Taylor’s Scenes in Asia, the first example of a children’s book featuring Japan; William Dalton’s English Boy in Japan, which is the first juvenile story set in Japan; missionary books, including chapters on Japanese boys and girls; the very successful The Eastern Wonderland by D. G. Angus in which the Japanese narrator writes about Japan as a country more wondrous than Alice in Wonderland. The set concludes with two Geography textbooks from the early twentieth century which for the first time introduced industrial Japan to an English young readership. All illustrations and plates in colour are reproduced and provide very attractive visual sources, too.