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Blyth, R. H. [Reginald Horace] : Japanese Humour [2nd Edition] Tourist Library Vol. 24

Japan Travel Bureau, Tokyo, 1961

184 pages, illustrations, tan cloth, spine frayed, front hinge a little loose, text and illustrations are very good. Small red mark on front blank endpaper. Second edition. From Wikipedia: "Reginald Horace Blyth (3 December 1898 – 28 October 1964) was an English author and devotee of Japanese culture. ~ Having returned to Seoul in 1936, Blyth remarried in 1937, to a Japanese woman named Kijima Tomiko, with whom he later had two daughters, Nana Blyth and Harumi Blyth. He moved to Kanazawa, D. T. Suzuki's home town, in Japan, and took a job as English teacher at the Fourth Higher School (later Kanazawa University). When Britain declared war on Japan in December 1941, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, bringing Japan into World War II, Blyth was interned as a British enemy alien. Although he expressed his sympathy for Japan and sought Japanese citizenship, this was denied. During his internment his extensive library was destroyed in an air raid. In the internment camp in Kobe he finished his first book Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics and wrote parts of his books about haiku and senryu. He also met in the camp Robert Aitken, later Roshi of the Diamond Sangha in Honolulu. After the war, Blyth worked diligently with the authorities, both Japanese and American, to ease the transition to peace. Blyth functioned as liaison to the Japanese Imperial Household, and his close friend, Harold Gould Henderson, was on General Douglas MacArthur's staff. Together, they helped draft the declaration Ningen Sengen, by which Emperor Hirohito declared himself to be a human being, and not divine. By 1946, Blyth had become Professor of English at Gakushuin University, and became private tutor to the Crown Prince (later emperor) Akihito until the end of his [Blyth's] life. He did much to popularise Zen philosophy and Japanese poetry (particularly haiku) in the West. In 1954, he was awarded a doctorate in literature from Tokyo University, and, in 1959, he received the Zuihosho (Order of Merit) Fourth Grade. ", Good+ with no dust jacket

Second Edition

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