Does anyone out there own a copy of YEATS AND JAPAN, by Oshimi Shotaro?

Oshima, Shotaro.
W. B. Yeats and Japan.
Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 1965.

There are only three copies for sale in the U.S. and they are EXPENSIVE! And I don't need to own it -- only to "consult" it. If you own a copy and you would be willing to loan it or photocopy it, please reply here or email me at mbock@harrywinston.com

Irish and Japanese blessings upon you,

MARIAN

Marian-NYC,

One of the copies seems to be near you, according to Abebooks. Perhaps they would let you consult.


Oshima, Shotaro
W. B. Yeats and Japan
Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 1965. Very Good/No Jacket. Limited/Numbered. Limited edition: "One thousand copies printed on special 'Honshu' paper" of which this is copy number 919.This book deals with Yeats from the viewpoint of his relationship with the East. Written by the professor of English Literature at Waseda University, the book includes correspondence from Yeats, facsimiles of autographed poems, essays on eastern aspects of Yeat's work, interviews, photographs and bibliographic material. 198 pages in dark green cloth. The book is a little edgeworn with bumped corners. Spine hinge, while still quite strong, is beginning to loosen. The corners of several pages have been bent. Bookseller Inventory #000271
Price: US$ 95.00 (Convert Currency)
Bookseller: Heights Books, Inc., Brooklyn, NY, U.S.A.

[www.abebooks.com] />
pam

Pam, you are very sharp. I have spoken to the guy who owns the store (and I've been to the store many times).

But I need to have the book for long enough to photocopy or photograph the entire text, and the store will only let me look at it.

By the way, the last time I was in that store I ran into Dr. Jonathan Miller. He was buying Weber's ECONOMY & SOCIETY and I was buying BABAR.

Dr Jonathan Miller did the most impressive piece of televsion I've ever seen, and no one else seems to remember it. It was in a BBC series called "The body in question", made to show how the human body works. He was illustrating that its not oxygen levels but carbon dioxide that controls breathing rates. So he was breathing from a closed system hooked up to a moniter to show his depth and rate of breathing. As the oxygen reduced and the carbon dioxide built up his breathing became quicker and deeper. Then he did it again, but with a carbon dioxide scrubber in the circuit. His breathing didn't change.

They rolled credits over him passing out and the medical crew coming in with an oxygen cylinder to revive him.

Oh Linda, I do remember the series -- In fact, I mentioned it to Dr. Miller when I met him. And I told him that I made a piano transcription of the theme music, which was weird and wonderful.

There was an episode that profiled a shamanic healer somewhere in Africa or South America (probably the latter) who did diagnosis and prescription by asking yes-no questions and then poisoning chickens: if they died, he was right. Miller disagreed with the shaman on the diagnosis of that day's patient, but he didn't argue when the chicken said he was wrong.


(Still looking for someone who can lend -- or RENT -- a copy of that book!)

I need to have the book for long enough to photocopy or photograph the entire text ...

Say what?

Yes, Hugh--to copy it so that a college student I know can draw on it for her senior year lit-crit paper.

It's ALWAYS legal to make one copy of a book for personal use. When you make multiple copies, or when you SELL the copy, that's when you get into copyright trouble. (The exceptions to the one-copy-for-personal-use rule are "top secret" government stuff and proprietary creative material--and even there, the line is fuzzy and shifts with every court case.)

Sharing a facsimile of a book that is rare and long out-of-print would be, in my opinion, a purely good deed. A Yeats buff can still spend $95 to own a "real" copy if he or she desires. And the existence of a photocopy won't affect its value at all.

In the case of this particular book, I suspect that there is a facsimile or text ON LINE somewhere already, but it's probably on a Japanese website that I can't find. (The YEATS SOCIETY of Japan, is large and very electronic, and its founder wrote this book.)

Nearly totally irrelevant, I am reading T.S.Elliot, Selected Prose, Penguin Books, 1953.
This includes Elliot's 1940 lecture on Yeats, delivered to the Friends of the Irish Academy, Dublin.
If a copy of this would be of any use to your friend e-mail me and I'll get a photocopy.

Linda, you are a Jolly Good Fellow for offering.

Alas, my student friend is looking at the way various poets have described (and how they've been influenced by) JAPAN and things Japanese--from the romantic and clueless romantic visions to the later genuine exchange of ideas between 20th century Japanese and English-language poets.

Net browsing, I found a lot of good stuff on the subject (in general, and with focus on particular writers such as Amy Lowell)--so she will have plenty to use for her paper. But she was so dazzled by the Oshima book that I had to at least TRY to find her a copy (of a copy).

Fine, I wasn't sure if the topic related more to Yeats or Japan.