Arthur Rimbaud: Yoidore Fune — Trans. Shinjo Kazuichi, Shirakaba Shobo 1948 (Showa 23)

[PRODUCT SPECIFICATIONS]
- Author: Arthur Rimbaud (アルテュウル・ランボオ)
- Title: 酔ひどれ船 (Yoidore Fune) — Japanese translation of Rimbaud's collected works including Le Bateau Ivre
- Translator: Shinjo Kazuichi (新城和一)
- Publisher: Shirakaba Shobo (白樺書房)
- Year Published: 1948 (Showa 23)
- Language: Japanese
- Format: Hardcover with dust jacket, 201 pages, 13 × 18 cm
- Inclusions: None

[OVERVIEW]

Arthur Rimbaud abandoned poetry at nineteen. By then he had already written everything: Le Bateau Ivre, Une Saison en Enfer, the Illuminations. The body of work he left behind — composed between the ages of fifteen and nineteen — detonated the foundations of French verse and sent shockwaves through every subsequent generation of poets, from the Surrealists to the Beats. No poet has been more imitated, more mythologized, or more impossible to translate.

This 1948 Shirakaba Shobo edition — translated by Shinjo Kazuichi and titled after Rimbaud's most celebrated single poem — belongs to the first wave of serious Rimbaud scholarship in postwar Japan, when the poet's radical vision found an immediate resonance among a generation confronting the ruins of one world and the uncertain shape of another. The dust jacket — cream ground with bold red vertical title typography and a deep crimson panel of arabesque floral ornament — is a quietly distinguished piece of late-1940s Japanese book design, its decorative vocabulary at elegant odds with the incendiary content within.

[IMPORTANT NOTE FOR INTERNATIONAL BUYERS: EASY AI TRANSLATION]

While the text is printed in Japanese, you can easily read and study this historic book using modern smartphone AI tools! By taking a photo of any page with your smartphone and using free apps like Google Lens, ChatGPT, or Google Translate, the embedded AI will instantly scan and translate the text on your screen layout. Language is no longer a barrier to owning and enjoying this rare piece of international history.

[WHY THIS VOLUME IS A PRIZED COLLECTOR'S ITEM]

1. Historical & Literary Value — A 1948 Japanese edition of Rimbaud — published three years after the end of the war, in the first flush of Japan's postwar intellectual reopening — is a primary document of the era. Rimbaud's influence on Japanese poetry and counterculture runs deep; this is one of the earliest postwar translations.

2. Visual & Artistic Value — The dust jacket's cream ground, red calligraphic title, and deep crimson arabesque panel create a design of restrained beauty entirely characteristic of late-1940s Japanese publishing at its most considered.

3. Rarity — Postwar Japanese editions of Rimbaud from 1948 in collectible condition are seldom encountered outside Japan. This is a volume sought by collectors of French poetry, Japanese literary history, and mid-century book design alike.

[CONDITION]
Good Vintage Condition — Honest Survivor

- Dust Jacket: Soiling and age-toning (foxing) to the dust jacket, consistent with nearly 80 years of age. The design and typography remain fully legible and characterful.
- Covers & Spine: Firm and square.
- Binding: Tight, secure, and fully intact.
- Interior & Pages: Age-toning (browning/foxing) throughout the text block — entirely consistent with paper of this era. No inscriptions, no underlining, no annotations.
- *Please carefully inspect all high-resolution listing photos to verify the exceptional vintage condition.*