Daring Adventures of Chivalrous Men (Kaikan kyoki Kyokakuden 開巻 驚竒 侠客傳) was written by Kyokutei Bakin (曲亭 馬琴 1767-1848). It is closely based on a fictional work in vernacular Chinese from the Qing dynasty1. It was published between 1832 and 1849, in 25 volumes distributed in 5 series of 5 volumes each, and there were two chapters per volume. After Bakin's death in 1848, Hagiwara Hiromichi (萩原 広道, 1815-1863) wrote a fifth series at the request of the publisher1. In his lifetime, Bakin wrote 142 novels, he was one of the most popular writers in Japan until his works were banned by the Tokugawa Shogunate in 18422.
Five volumes are presented here, containing chapters 23 to 32. Four volumes (巻) are of the third series (第), and one is of the fourth series. The illustrations are numbered and the present volumes contain illustrations (像賛) 19 to 24 and 31 to 45 (the image number is given in a vase-shaped cartouche, generally located in one of the bottom corners of the image). It is not clear to me why illustrations 19 to 24 have been placed between illustrations 42 and 43 (in our copy as well as in that of Waseda University).
In all the volumes, the author is listed as Kyokutei Shujin Henji (曲亭 主人 編次 preceded by Edo 東都), which is a pen name of Kyokutei Bakin.
- The text on folio 2 of volume 4-1 is signed Saritsu Gyoin (蓑笠漁隠), also a pen name of Bakin
- The text in the cartouche of image 19 is signed Chosaku Do (著作堂), another of his pen names.
- Kanwatei Onitake, author of Jiraya Setsuwa, is mentioned on the title page of volume 4-1, but this title page might have been borrowed from another book, as it is not present in the volumes of Waseda University, and Onitake's name is not among the authors listed by that University.
The same is true for the illustrator Teisai Hokuba mentioned on that title page.
Illustrators :
Series 2, 4, 5 : Tsuguya Yanagawa Shigenobu (二也 柳川 重信 1787-1832).
Series 3 : Utagawa Kunisada (歌川 国貞 1786-1865).
Dates of publication:
3-3 : there is an advertisement for Hokusai Manga 1-10 (1819-1834)
3-5 : the colophon gives the date as Tenpo 5 spring and 31st year of sexagesimal cycle = 1834
3-5 : there is an advertisement for series 9 of Nanso Satomi Hakkenden (南總里見ハ犬傳) by Bakin, which was published in 1835
4-1 : the text by Bakin at the beginning of the volume is dated Tenpo 5 (天保 五) = 1834
The present volumes have been restored, some folios are backed with printed paper, and the covers and bindings are newer. The covers of all volumes have a daisen (題簽) with the title Kyokakuden Jiraya (侠客傳 自來也), which is confusing, since these are the titles of two different novels lumped together. Part of the reason is that the seventh volume of Jiraya Setsuwa is bound in the same way, with the same cover and daisen.
Click on the cover to browse a volume. As the folios are arranged in the Japanese way, each volume should be read from right to left. The folios with no images or titles have been omitted.
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The table of contents of series 4 is surrounded by 12 illustrations (shown below), which I assume are meant to highlight the 12 most significant events described in the successive chapters of that series. The table of contents of the other series (except the first one) also have an illustrated table of contents. The illustrations below have been reordered in the occidental way, from top left to bottom right.
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The complete series of volumes is available on the website of Waseda University
Links to the complete individual volumes presented here are given below :
Volume 3-2 : html or
pdf
Volume 3-3 : html or
pdf
Volume 3-4 : html or
pdf
Volume 3-5 : html or
pdf
Volume 4-1 : html or
pdf
There are several minor differences between our copies and those of Waseda University.
The title page of our volume 3-4 should be that of volume 4-1.
The title page of our volume 4-1 does not belong to the series.
There are four folios of advertisements at the end of our volume 3-3.
There is one extra folio of advertisements in our volume 3-5 (between folios numbered 25 and 26).
Bibliography
1. Patrick Caddeau, Appraising Genji: Literary Criticism and Cultural Anxiety in the Age of the last samurai, State University of New York Press, 2006, p.44↩
2. Sachiko Shibata Schierbeck, Marlene R. Edelstein, Japanese Women Novelists in the 20th Century: 104 Biographies, 1900-1993, Museum Tusculanum Press, 1994.↩
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