The Lists of the Owners of A Pochet Dictionary of the English and Japanese Language (sic) , First, and Second & Revised Edition

Abstract

For much of the Edo period, Dutch had been the only western language studied in Japan, but with the sudden arrival of Commodore M. C. Perry's four 'black ships' at Uraga Bay in 1853, learning English became indispensable. Under these circumstances, the Tokugawa government ordered Hori Tatsunoske, a Dutch interpreter, to develop an English-Japanese dictionary at the government-run school of European languages. Hori was the first Japanese to have spoken English to a foreign officer at the time of Perry's first official visit to Japan.
In 1863 when the Dictionary was first published, only two hundred copies were printed and distributed by the government. However, the need for this dictionary was so great that it was revised and published again in 1866, 1867 and 1869.
Research on the owners of this dictionary has been carried out by the author from 1998 to 2006. According to this research, there are currently a total of two hundred and eight known copies of this dictionary in existence. The fact that this many of the dictionaries can still be found over a century after their publication shows us how important this first English-Japanese dictionary has been over the years.