Japanese Maps : Map of Japan for Tourists, published by the Welcome Society of Japan
Japanese Maps
<p style='text-align: justify;'> Topographic central map of Japan for tourists, published by the Welcome Society of Japan. Ancillary maps: Taiwan, Chart of the World (with steamship routes), Hokkaido and Okhotsk. It includes a glossary and explanation of signs, and a preface describing the object and fundamental principles of the Welcome Society. The Welcome Society or Kihinkai was created in 1893, with its main office in the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, by a group of Japanese businessmen, members of the Tokyo Chamber of Industry and Commerce. Most of them had been involved in diplomatic activity and had connections with the Japanese government. The Society (which preluded to the creation, in 1912, of the Japan Tourist Bureau, one of the very first National Tourist Offices in the world) aimed at: attracting foreign visitors, to bring foreign cash to Japan; supporting the improvement of tourist facilities in Japan; fostering connections between foreign dignitaries and noblemen and Japanese gentlemen; producing guidebooks and maps for the use of foreign visitors. </p><p style='text-align: justify;'> This map was printed for English speaking tourists. It has been identified as No. 2089 of First Edition, the total issue eleven thousand. November, 1897 (the date is reported in a Japanese colophon in the left side). It folds into pictorial covers with woodblock prints of a geisha and Mount Fuji; commercial advertising on reverse, some illustrated. Annotated [see Notes field] - Mounted on the recto is the MGS’s bookplate: “Presented by The Executors of the late Mr. A. J. Kennedy, F.R.G.S – July 8th 1910”. </p>