Haiku, Volume I: Eastern Culture.

Tokyo, Japan Hokuseido Press, 1981. Paperback First Edition Thus [1981], First Printing of this Paperback Edition. First Edition Thus [1981], First Printing of this Paperback Edition. Very Good+ in Wraps with Very Good DJ: shows indications of very careful use: just a hint of wear to the extremities; several pages inadvertly creased at the upper corner late in the text; scant foxing to the top and fore-edges; a bit of 'rumpling' to the front free endpaper; the binding is square and secure; the text is clean. Free of creases to the panels. Free of creases to the backstrip. Free of underlining, hi-lighting, notations, or marginalia. Free of any ownership names, dates, addresses, notations, inscriptions, stamps, plates, or labels. A handsome copy, structurally sound and tightly bound, showing very mild wear and few unobtrusive cosmetic flaws. Bright and Clean. Corners sharp. Close to 'As New'. The DJ shows mild wear to the head and heel of the backstrip and faint sunning to the tan background field of the backstrip and along the hinges of the panels; unclipped. No longer perfect, but remains attractive. NOT a Remainder, Book-Club, or Ex-Library. 8vo. (8.3 x 5.6 x 0.75 inches). viii, 344 pages. Color frontispice. Decorated endpapers. Twenty-five duotone plates. Appendices. Language: English. Weight: 15.6 ounces. Paperback: French Wraps [with DJ]. After early imagist interest in haiku the genre drew less attention in English, until after World War II, with the appearance of a number of influential volumes about Japanese haiku. In 1949, with the publication in Japan of the first volume of Haiku, Blyth's four-volume work, haiku was introduced to the post-war Western world. Blyth produced a series of works on Zen, haiku, senryu, and on other forms of Japanese and Asian literature, the most significant being his Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics (1942); his four-volume Haiku series (1949–52), dealing mostly with pre-modern haiku, though including Shiki; and his two-volume History of Haiku (1964). Many contemporary Western writers of haiku were introduced to the genre through his works. These include the San Francisco and Beat Generation writers, such as Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, and Allen Ginsberg, as well as J.D. Salinger. Many members of the international "haiku community" also got their first views of haiku from Blyth's books, including American author James W. Hackett (born 1929), Eric Amann, William J. Higginson, Anita Virgil, Jane Reichhold, and Lee Gurga. Some noted Blyth's distaste for haiku on more modern themes and his strong bias regarding a direct connection between haiku and Zen, a connection largely ignored by modern Japanese poets. (Basho, in fact, felt that his devotion to haiku prevented him from realising enlightenment. In addition, many classic Japanese haiku poets, including Chiyo-ni, Buson, and Issa were Pure Land rather than Zen Buddhists.) Blyth also did not view haiku by Japanese women favourably, downplaying their substantial contributions to the genre, especially during the Basho era and the twentieth century. In just over 800 pages of text in his two volume History of Haiku, Blyth devotes a total of 16 pages to haiku by women, and even these pages are run through with negative comments about women as writers of haiku. "Women are said to be intuitive, and as they cannot think, we may hope this is so, but intuition, like patriotism, is not enough." With respect to a verse ostensibly by Chi-yo he wrote, "Chiyo's authorship of this verse is doubtful, but so is whether women can write haiku." Although Blyth did not foresee the appearance of original haiku in languages other than Japanese when he began writing on the topic, and although he founded no school of verse, his works stimulated the writing of haiku in English. At the end of the second volume of his History of Haiku (1964), he remarked that "The latest development in the history of haiku is one which nobody foresaw...the writing of haiku outside Japan, not in the Japanese language." He followed that comment with a number of original verses in English by Hackett with whom Blyth corresponded.