JAPAN DAY BY DAY : 1877, 1878-79, 1882-83 (TWO VOLUME SET); With 777 Illustrations from Sketches in the Author's Journal

Boston, Mass: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917. First Edition. Hardcover. Good. Two volume set: Octavo, 9 in. x 6.8 in. Volume I: pp. xiv, [2], 441. Volume II: pp. 453 Illustrated with tissue-guarded color frontispieces and 777 line drawings. Khaki cloth boards with title and Japanese village scene stamped in dark green and beige to fronts. Dark green title and small white flowers stamped to spine. Top edges gilt. Rubbing to extremities. Light soiling and several stains to boards; darkening to spines. Booksellers sticker to front free endpaper of Volume II. Front hinge tender and tissue-guard spotted on Volume II. Edward Sylvester Morse was born in Portland, Maine, U.S.A. in 1838. Although he worked mainly as a draftsman and did not go to university, Morse's research... caught the attention of Louis Agassiz, a renowned naturalist, thus launching his career as a zoologist. A singularly gifted lecturer on popular science, Morse used the money from his winter lectures to pursue vigorous research at his own expense... Three visits to Japan between 1877 and 1883 marked a turning point in Morse's life. The discovery of the mori shell mound and a deep interest in Japanese ceramics and Japanese culture that was aroused during his visit to Japan led Morse to become a Japanologist rather than a zoologist. Morse wrote several excellent books on Japan, including Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings (1886) and Japan Day by Day (1917), and also gave numerous lectures on Japan, promoting understanding of Japan from a pro-Japanese standpoint.

"One of the charms of Japan Day by Day is that readers can feel the delight of Morse's "discovery" in what he sees and hears. When he landed in Yokohama late at night and looked around from his hotel window in the morning, 'What a world of delight burst upon me as I looked out the hotel window this morning on the frigates of the various nations in the harbor and the curious native boats and junks, with everything novel but the ships and the sea,' Morse's collection of Japanese ceramics (in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston) and Japanese folklore (in the Peabody Museum, Salem) are both world-renowned. He died in 1925." (from Springer).