iiiTakumi YamaguchiWe are pleased to present a reprint of the first edition A Nile Voyage of Recovery by Charles and Susan Bowles, originally published in 1895, as a new volume in the ACRI Research Paper Series. This endeavor is part of the Global Mediterranean project at Asian Cultures Research Institute (ACRI), TOYO University, funded by the National Institutes for the Humanities (NIHU). The book is a small memoir written by an American couple recounting their travel by boat along the Nile River in Egypt, adorned with multicolored illustrations of Japanese woodblock print illustrations. This unlikely arrangement between the West and the two Easts was materialized at the end of the nineteenth century by the hand of Takejiro Hasegawa (長谷川武次郎, 1853-1938), a preeminent publisher and en-trepreneur in Meiji Japan. The book was produced in the distinctive format of his renowned crepe-paper books. Hasegawa’s crepe-paper books derive their name from the unique type of Japanese washi paper employed for books and other items such as calendars produced by his compa-ny, Hasegawa Kobunsha (長谷川弘文社). The crepe paper was crafted using a special pres-suring device that imparts fine wrinkles onto the surface of plain Japanese paper, resulting in a considerable reduction in its size. The final product has a distinctly soft, pliant, yet du-rable texture. Hence, the Japanese name for the crepe-paper book, chirimen-bon (縮緬本), draws a parallel between the paper’s quality and the traditional fabric of chirimen, a silk or wool crepe textile often used in kimono production. At the turn of the century, crepe-paper Introduction: The Crepe-Paper Books of Meiji Japan and the Multiple Exposure of Orientalism(s) in A Nile Voyage of Recovery
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