Secret Memoirs of the Shoguns

Isaac Titsingh and Japan, 1779-1822

Isaac Titsingh, Timon Screech

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• Print ISBN:
  9780415546713
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135787370
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Japanische Geschichte

Isaac Titsingh was intermittently head of the Japan factory (trading station) of the Dutch East India Company 1780-94. He was a career merchant, but unusual in having a classical education and training as a physician. His impact in Japan was enormous, but he left disappointed in the ability of the country to embrace change. After many years in Java, India and China, he came to London, and then settled in Paris where he devoted himself to compiling translations of prime Japanese texts. It is one of the most exciting anthologies of the period and reveals the almost unknown world of eighteenth-century Japan, discussing politics, history, poetry and rituals. The Illustrations of Japan appeared posthumously in 1821-1822 in English, French and Dutch. This fully annotated edition makes the original English version available for the first time in nearly two centuries

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Figures
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I: Secret memoirs and anecdotes of the reigning dynasty of the shoguns, or sovereigns of Japan
• 1 Before the Tokugawa
• 2 Ieyasu, the Gongen, to Ietsugu
• 3 Yoshimune, the eighth shogun
• 4 Ieshige to Ienari
• Part II: Essays on Japanese civilisation
• 5 On the legal suicide of the Japanese
• 6 On Japanese poetry
• 7 The character of the Japanese people, and a history of East–West relations
• Part III: Other observations
• 8 ‘Secret Diary’ of Isaac Titsingh
• 9 Titsingh’s ‘Philosophical Discourse’
• Glossary
• Notes
• Bibliography