A rice-mortar, pounder, bee, and egg join the crabs in their council of war — illustration from a ca. 1911 crepe-paper reprint of The Battle of the Monkey and the Crab.
Featured on PDR in the essay Woodblocks in Wonderland: The Japanese Fairy Tale Series
From gift-bestowing sparrows and peach-born heroes to goblin spiders and dancing phantom cats — in a series of beautifully illustrated books, the majority printed on an unusual cloth-like crepe paper, the publisher Takejiro Hasegawa introduced Japanese folk tales to the West. Christopher DeCou on how a pioneering cross-cultural endeavour gave rise to a magnificent chapter in the history of children’s publishing.
Also appearing in the essay…
A Rice-Mortar, Pounder, Bee, and Egg Join the Crabs in Their Council of War
Date
1911
From
The Battle of the Monkey and the Crab
