Searching for Japanese texts: some useful links

I’ve been taking a course on research methods in Japanese sources this term. It’s amazing the resources out there that one would never otherwise know about…

(1) Union Catalogue of Early Japanese Books (日本古典総合目録)

I never suspected that such a database existed, so accessible and easily searchable. Looking for a kabuki play? a samurai clan’s records? records of the trade at Nagasaki? an Edo period novel? You can search for it here, and find out which libraries have handwritten manuscript copies (写本), and which compilations or anthologies contain a modern typed up (活字) copy.

It’s pretty incredible. All these things which I never thought I’d ever be able to find, suddenly available (almost, not quite) at my fingertips.

I searched for Gosannen Ôshû Gunki, a kabuki play composed in 1879 for the special occasion of a visit by former US president Ulysses S Grant to Japan. Performed only once, so far as I knew, I assumed that there was no written record of the script – kabuki, so far as I was told, never tended to keep scripts, the plays being pretty fluid, changing a bit every time they are performed. But, search for it I did, and there it was: original (woodblock?) printed copies in numerous libraries, including Tokyo University, Kyoto University, Waseda University, Geidai (aka Tokyo Univ of the Arts), the National Diet Library, and the collection of Shôchiku (the kabuki production company). And! a typed version of the document available in an anthology called 続帝国文庫並木宗輔浄瑠璃集 (zoku teikoku bunko Namiki Sôsuke jôruri-shû; Collection of Jôruri plays by Namiki Sôsuke, Imperial Archives, continued). Finding that anthology might not be the easiest thing to do, but, for a document I suspected never even existed to begin with, that’s really something.

(2) Want to read a certain Japanese story or novel, but aren’t sure if an English translation exists, what it’s called, or who it’s translated by? Want to translate and seek to publish a Japanese story or novel, but aren’t sure if someone’s beaten you to it?

日本文学翻訳書誌検索 (Japanese Literature in Translation Search), powered by the Japan Foundation, is another very interesting and useful database.

You can choose from a great many languages, not just English, and search by Japanese author, title, publication year and/or keywords, and find whether the book in question has been published in translation.

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