R.H. Blyth - Haiku in Four Volumes: Vol.I Eastern Culture; Vol. II Spring; Vol. III Summer / Autumn; Vol. IV Autumn / Winter

R.H. Blyth - Haiku in Four Volumes: Vol.I Eastern Culture; Vol. II Spring; Vol. III Summer / Autumn; Vol. IV Autumn / Winter - Tokyo (Japan) - The Hokuseido Press - 1949/1957 - 1st/2nd editions - 4 parts - [8], xviii, [424]; [8], [vi], 382; [8], [xvi], [444]; [8], [xlvi], 396 pp - Cloth bindings with dust jacket - 14 x 18,5 cm.

Condition: Good set - COMPLETE. Dust jackets volumes 2 and 4 with wear / tears; cover part 3 only partly preserved and a cut out corner on the half-title page. Small owner's entry.

Extensive four-volume 'collected work' of Japanese Haikus in Japanese and translated into English, each poem with explanations by the translator Reginald Horace Blyth (1898-1964). Illustrated with reproductions in black and white and sometimes in colour. With source list and index. Part 4 with fold-out 'literary map'.

¶ Hardback first edition of this standard work (except part 3 which is a second printing). Volume 1 (1949); Volume 2 (1950); Volume 3 (1957); Volume 4 (1952). This was Blyth's magnum opus and marked the introduction of Haiku to the Western world after World War II:

"Many contemporary Western writers of haiku were introduced to the genre through [Blyth's] Zen-based haiku explanations. These include the San Francisco and Beat Generation writers, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg as well as J. D. Salinger."