The Goblin Spider Japanese Fairy Tales. Second Series, No. 1

Tokyo. Japan: T. Hasegawa,. Good+ with no dust jacket. 1910. Unknown. Paperback. A charming - and slightly scary! - illustrated woodblock book printed on "chirimen-bon" (crepe paper ) paper and bound in Yamato-toji style - sewn at the spine with 2 silk ties. Some discolouration/fading to the outer wrappers, an (unrepaired) 'L' shaped tear (2cm x1cm) to the front outer edge of the front cover, and some marks to the rear cover, otherwise very good. No date shown but the Colophon (at the rear cover) in Japanese = c.1910. Printed: Meiji 32 (1899).7.1. Published: Meiji 32. (1899).7.10. 38 Honmura-cho - so c.1910 based on Honmura address. 11 double-sided leaves including the Illustrated wrappers/covers. A list of the Fairy Tales series up to No. 23 on the inside of the rear cover. Internally no inscriptions, tho a couple of pages have some very light base colour patchy 'tanning', but overall very clean and bright. Typical Japanese colour illustrations throughout. "In very ancient books it is said that there used to be many goblin-spiders in Japan. Some declare there are still some goblin-spiders. During the daytime they look just like common spiders; but very late at night, when everybody is asleep, and there is no sound, they become very, very big, and do awful things. Goblin-spiders are supposed also to have the magical power of taking human shape, so as to deceive people. And there is a famous Japanese story about such a spider..." One of the Scarcer, earlier versions of this Fairy Tale Title. See Images. ; Japanese Fairy Tale Series; 16mo 6" - 7" tall .