Abstract
In 1880, Rutherford Alcock observed that it was important to ‘be in a position to understand’ what Japan had been ‘in the old time’ in order to ‘rightly understand the New Japan’.1 He seems to have felt that sufficient time had elapsed since the revolution to enable him to approach Japan’s past objectively. The idea that Britain had obtained fairly solid knowledge of Tokugawa Japan was advanced by British writers who had a keen interest in Japan. Not only institutional, political and economic aspects but also the spiritual and cultural life of traditional Japan were steadily revealed to the British reading public, as has already been discussed in Chapter 6. However, the idea of ‘Old Japan’ which became dominant in British magazine and review articles during the 1870s was not produced by such writers as Alcock or Chamberlain, but rather by those who came for brief visits to Japan from either Shanghai or Hong Kong or on round-the-world tours and provided highly coloured accounts of their experiences.
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Notes and References
R. Alcock, ‘Old and New Japan: A Decade of Japanese Progress’, Content. Rev., vol. xxxviii (1880), p. 828.
D. Wedderburn, ‘Modern Japan’, Fort. Rev., vol. xxiii, new series (1878), p. 418.
C. W. Dilke, ‘English Influence in Japan’, Fort. Rev., vol. xx, new series (1876), p. 441.
C. A. G. Bridge, ‘The Mediterranean of Japan’, Fort. Rev., vol. xviii, new series (1875), pp. 214–5.
C. A. G. Bridge, ‘The City of Kiyôto’, Fraser, vol. xvii, new series (1878), p. 61.
H. Reeve, ‘Baron Hübner’s Trip round the World’, Edin. Rev., vol. cxxxviii (1873), p.89.
R. Alcock, ‘Japan and the Japanese’, Edin. Rev., vol. cxiii (1861), pp. 42 and 59–63.
See C. W. Brooks, Japanese Wrecks, Stranded and Picked Up Adrift in the North Pacific Ocean, Ethnologically Considered (reprint edn, San Francisco, 1876).
R. L. S[tevenson| ‘Yoshida-Torajiro’, Cornhill., vol. xli (1880), p. 334. Yoshida had hidden himself aboard Commodore Perry’s ship in the hopes of visiting America. He was, however, discovered before the departure, and the Japanese authorities arrested him, for it was then illegal to leave Japan. Stevenson obtained information about Yoshida from Masaki Taizô in Edinburgh in 1879. Masaki held the position of Supervisor of the Japanese Students in Britain during the period 1876 to 81.
J. H. Bridge, ‘Is Our Cause in China Just?’, Fort. Rev., vol. xviii, new series (1875), p. 648.
C. W. Dilke, ‘English Influence in China’, Macmillan., vol. xxxiv (1876), p. 562.
R. Alcock, ‘The Future of Eastern Asia’, Macmillan., vol. xxx (1874), p. 447.
Mrs Gerald Porter, Annals of a Publishing House, John Blackwood (Edinburgh and London, 1898), p. 416.
M. D. Wyatt, ‘Orientalism in European Industry’, Macmillan., vol. xxi (1870), pp. 553–4.
A. I. Shand, ‘The Romance of Japanese Revolution’, Blackw., vol. cxv (1874), p. 699.
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© 1987 Toshio Yokoyama
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Yokoyama, T. (1987). Victorian Travellers in the Japanese ‘Elf-land’. In: Japan in the Victorian Mind. St Palgrave Macmillan Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08372-5_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08372-5_8
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