Seicho-no-Ie: Saji-Tsu nenshi [Seicho-no-Ie: Three Decade History]

Seicho-no-Ie Honbu [Seicho-no-Ie Headquarters], ed. Nipponkyobunsha, 1959

Exceedingly scarce in the trade, there being currently only one additional copy available on-line, with the elusive dust jacket, missing here. English translation is "Three Decade History," possibly a school or business directory or biography of some sort. Bound quite handsomely in a brown, heavy, almost sail-cloth binding, and with Japanese characters to front cover, gilt-stamped, along with gilt-stamped design. Big, heavy quarto format, measuring 10 1/4" x 7 3/8" in size, and quite thick. Illustrated endpapers in duotone, extremely thin glassine tissue-protected frontis photographic portrait of the presumed author or subject of this tome, and then several hundred equally sharp black-and-white illustrations and photographs of the author/subject and his family, school, childhood and work-mates. Long range of text follows, in Japanese, and with photocopied reproductions of official photographs. [6], 1-439 pp.