Introduction to Hokusai Manga

The Hokusai Manga are very famous, they have been widely discussed and documented (e.g. Forrer 2014), and digitized copies are available on many sites (some of them are listed on our links page). We have therefore not found it useful to present them in detail here (at least not in the immediate future), and this page is mainly devoted to a discussion of differences between editions of individual volumes, which are useful to date them.

Because of their popularity, the Mangas have been re-edited at least twice. While the dates for the first edition of volumes 1-10 and for the Meiji editions are well known, those of the edition(s) in between are not, because the publisher often does not give the date of issue in the colophon. No Edo era copy of volume 11 has ever been dated with absolute certainty (dates of 1828, 1833 or 1834 have been proposed). In the case of our own copies, only 5 out of 11 can be dated with certainty.

There were two publishers, Eirakuya Toshiro (永樂屋東四郎) in Nagoya and Kadomuraya Jinsuke (角丸屋 甚助) in Edo, for the first edition. The names of the respective publishing houses were Tohekido and Shuseikaku. The following Edo era editions were probably only by Eirakuya Toshiro. Volume 14 was first published in Edo by Izumiya Ichibei (we found no such copy). Katano Toshiro (son of Eirakuya Toshiro) published subsequent editions of the series in the years 1875-1878, with woodblocks supposedly from the first edition (but in fact from a re-edition with changes, as shown by examples on our links page), adding a fukuro (title page, which precedes the preface and the frontispiece). Judging from the absence of dates on the fukuros of volumes 10, 11, 13 and 14, the publisher himself did not seem to know the dates of the first edition of these volumes. The woodblocks for many of the volumes were bought in the Meiji era by the publisher Yoshikawa Hanshichi (吉川 半七). Again, we found no copies by this publisher, so the information about Ichibei and Hanshichi editions should be taken with caution.

The table below lists the essential characteristics of the first edition. The dates of publication were taken from Faccioli (2003), the authors of the prefaces from the Gallica page of each volume, and the editorial staff from Steiner (2014). The preface (except for vol 15) and the frontispiece are among the numbered folios (listed in column 2), but not the colophon, the fukuro or the advertisements. Since the preface of volume 15 is not among the 18 numbered folios, that volume actually has the same number of illustrated pages as volumes 2-14. Volume 12 was engraved by Egawa Tomekichi, who also engraved Hokusai's Musashi Abumi.

Vol folios First
edition		 Preface (序) by Editorial staff (listed in the colophon)
1 16 1814 Hanshu Sanjin 半洲散人 Hokutei Bokusen, Tonansai Hokuun
2 19 1815 Rokujuen Shujin 六樹園主人 Totoya Hakkei, Toenro Hokusen, Hokutei Bokusen, Tonansai Hokuun
3 19 1815 Ota Nanpo (1749-1823) 大田南畝 Totoya Hakkei, Toenro Hokusen, Hokutei Bokusen, Tonansai Hokuun
4 19 1816 Kozan Gyoo 絳山漁翁 Totoya Hakkei, Toenro Hokusen, Hokutei Bokusen, Tonansai Hokuun
5 19 1816 Rokujuen Shujin 六樹園主人 Totoya Hakkei, Toenro Hokusen, Hokutei Bokusen, Tonansai Hokuun
6 19 1817 Shoku Sanjin Bunpotei (1768-1829) 蜀山人文寳 Totoya Hakkei, Toenro Hokusen, Hokutei Bokusen, Tonansai Hokuun
7 19 1817 Shikitei Sanba (1776-1822) 式亭 三馬 Totoya Hakkei, Toenro Hokusen, Hokutei Bokusen, Tonansai Hokuun
8 19 1819 Kozan Gyoo 絳山漁翁 Totoya Hakkei, Toenro Hokusen, Hokutei Bokusen, Tonansai Hokuun
9 19 1819 Rokujuen Shujin 六樹園主人 Totoya Hakkei, Toenro Hokusen, Hokutei Bokusen,
Gessai Utamasa
10 19 1819 Heirodai Rojin 栟櫚台老人 Totoya Hakkei, Toenro Hokusen, Hokutei Bokusen,
Gessai Utamasa
11 19 before
1834		 Ryutei Tanehiko 柳亭種彦 not listed
12 19 1834 Shakuyakutei Nagane 芍薬亭長根 not listed
13 19 1849 Sankin Gaishi Shoryu 山禽外史小笠 not listed
14 19 after
1849		 Hyakuryoo 百信翁 not listed
15 18 1878 Katano Toshiro 片野東四郎 not listed

Bibliography

Faccioli, Silvia, I manga di Hokusai, Analisi cronologica delle edizioni e relative sequenze di uscita, Tesi di Laurea, Università Ca' Foscari di Venezia, 2003, 160p.

Forrer, Matthi, Hokusai. La Manga. L’Édition Complète Commentée 2 volumes, Paris, editions Hazan, 2014.

Steiner, Evgeny, Endlessly variegated pictures: a pictorial encyclopedia of old Japanese life (an introduction to Hokusai Manga’s full edition with commentaries), National Research University, Higher School of Economics, 2004, 33p.
https://www.hse.ru/data/2014/04/28/1322671198/49HUM2014.pdf