The narrative of a Japanese; what he has seen and the people he has met in the course of the last forty years ... Edited by James Murdoch ... Vol. I. (From the time of his being a castaway in 1850 down to the fight of Shimonoseki.) Vol. II.
[San Francisco: published by American-Japanese Publishing Assn. printed by Kudo Printing Co., Tokyo, n.d., [ca. 1950]. Reprint of the first edition in English, 8vo, 2 vols., pp. [4], iii, [3], 346, [6]; [6], 254, [6], v, [1]; 7 plates (actually 6, as 1 is not a plate), 6 pp. of facsimiles, a number of wood-engraved illustrations in the text throughout; original red and brown cloth lettered in gilt on upper cover and spine; very good and sound. The verso of the title-p. in volume I notes that the original edition was printed in Yokohama by the Yokohama Printing & Pub. Co. An uncommon and interesting account by the first Japanese-American. Joseph Heco (1837-1897), a native of the province of Sanyodo, went to sea in 1850. When his ship was dismasted, he and other members of the crew were rescued by an American ship which took Heco to California, and the young Japanese did not return to his native land until 1859. The narrative contains Heco's reminiscences, based on diaries that he began to keep as soon as he had mastered English. In the first volume, he describes his boyhood in Japan and the voyage that brought him to America; a trip to Hong Kong; and a return voyage to San Francisco, where a local businessman sponsors Heco's education and travels to New York and Baltimore. This volume concludes with Heco's return to Japan in 1859 and work as interpreter for the U.S. consulate and a second trip to America, 1861-1862. Vol. 2 (1895) contains Heco's reminiscences of his adventures, picking up the story shortly after Heco's return to Japan after his second journey to America in 1862. His later experiences in Japan include an eyewitness account of key events in the Revolution of 1868. Item #60142
Price: $450.00
