Paper short abstract:

The overwhelming majority Edo editions of Kobun kōkyō are not illustrated. Why did publishers go to the trouble and expense of adding illustrating to a text always in demand? Exploring this questions will enrich our understanding of Edo publishing.

Paper long abstract:

From the fourteenth century monasteries in Japan were printing Chinese philosophical and moral texts. The first publication ordered by Emperor Go-yōzei (r.1586-1611) using moveable type and printers brought to Japan as booty from Korea was the Kōkyō 孝経. Confucian texts also dominated the list of Tokugawa Ieyasu's nine moveable type publications, which appeared between 1599 and 1616. All of these editions presented the Chinese texts without reading aids (白文 hakubun) and without illustrations.

The rapid expansion of commercial publishing in the first half of the seventeenth century was based entirely on the use of cut woodblocks. This technology allowed for the publication of Chinese and Japanese language texts with complex annotations (furigana 振り仮名, kunten 訓点, okurigana 送り仮名, etc.). The ease with which such annotation could be added to texts expanded significantly the market for all categories of Chinese and Japanese printed texts.

One of the most popular non-fiction Chinese texts in early modern Japan was Kobun kōkyō 古文孝経. By the nineteenth century, individual publishers carried it in numerous distinct editions. They offered it with and without commentaries, with and without a translation, and with varying levels of annotation. The overwhelming majority of these editions were without illustrations.

The very small number of illustrated editions of Kobun kōkyō raise a number of questions. What prompted publishers to go to the extra expense of providing illustrations for a text that was always in demand? What did publishers expect of the artists they commissioned to illustrate the text? Did they want replicas of imported Chinese models or did they require fresh images geared to the expectations and taste of a contemporary Japanese audience? The number and format of the illustrations were other matters that had to be determined by the publishers. What factors influenced their choices?

A close study of illustrated editions of Kobun kōkyō to reveal the approaches to the illustration of this non-narrative texts that were adopted by commercial publishers should enrich our understanding of the publishing industry in the Edo period.