Hasegawa Takejirō

Hasegawa Takejirō (長谷川武次郎^?, 1853–1938) was an innovative Japanese publisher specializing in books in European languages on Japanese subjects. Hasegawa employed leading foreign residents as translators and noted Japanese artists as illustrators, and became a leading purveyor of export books and publications for foreign residents in Japan.

Hasegawa's earliest known books were published under the "Kobunsha" imprint in the mid-1880s but around 1889 he began publishing under the names "T. Hasegawa" and "Hasegawa & Co." Early publications included a monochrome woodcut illustrated Hokusai collection and a two volume Writings of Buddha (Kobunsha, 1884).

Many of Hasegawa's early books were in the form of chirimen-bon (ちりめん本) or crêpe paper books.

In 1885, Hasegawa published the first six volumes of his Japanese Fairy Tale Series, employing American Presbyterian missionary Rev. David Thomson as translator. As the series proved profitable, Hasegawa added other translators beginning with James Curtis Hepburn for the seventh volume, including Basil Hall Chamberlain, Lafcadio Hearn, and Chamberlain's friend Kate James, wife of his Imperial Japanese Naval Academy colleague, Thomas H. James. The books were illustrated by Kobayashi Eitaku until his death in 1890, and by various other artists afterwards. By 1903, the series reached 28 volumes in two series. Most of the stories were based on well-known Japanese folk tales, but some of the later books, including several by Lafcadio Hearn, are thought to have been invented rather than translated, or perhaps combine elements of several folk tales. The books continued to be reprinted, sometimes with variant titles, for several decades.

Momotaro

Tongue Cut Sparrow

Battle of the Monkey & Crab

Hanasaki Jiji

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