As Dave notes in his description of a print from this set: "The album combines Japanese images with English translations of ancient poetry, accompanied by an explanatory preface and postscript. Every bit of it was carved and printed in the woodblock technique, including all the text. It is an astonishingly beautiful production, and was so successful that Hasegawa issued two more volumes in the series over the next few years. It is a bit sad to think that such a book as this could never be produced these days, as the labour costs would make it prohibitively expensive. It was only possible in the first place because Japan at the time was a ‘poor country’ and the consumers of the work were in ‘rich countries’. Those are economic terms of course; there was nothing ‘poor’ about a society that could create such things as those albums!"

Volume one of "Sword and Blossom Poems" was first produced by famous chirimen-bon ("crepe-paper book") publisher Hasegawa Takejiro in 1907. Our set, however, is a mixed bag: volume one is from the second printing in 1909, volume two is from the first printing in 1908, and volume three is probably from the third printing in 1914. According to the British Museum's catalogue entry, the books were illustrated by Minamoto Yoshimune (more commonly known as Arai Yoshimune), an artist who produced the artworks for several other Hasegawa books. Works by the artists Kason, Koho, Shoso, Hiroshige and Baison are also thought to have been used throughout the set. Little is known about Charlotte M. A. Peake, one of the translators of the Japanese poems into English, but that she wrote numerous books that were published in London before and after her period in Japan, and that she produced at least one other book with Hasegawa. Unfortunately, no information is currently available about the other translator, Kimura Shotaro.

The "sword" poems included in the books are based on Chinese-style poems by Japanese composers about the warrior spirit, while the "blossom" poems are gentile waka compositions on nature mainly from the Kokin Wakashū (usually known as the Kokinshu, 900AD). Poems on love by anonymous or unknown poets are also included in the third volume. Unlike most other books published by Hasegawa, the high quality hosho-gami paper pages of "Sword and Blossom Poems" have not been creped. The paper used to cover the padded boards in the binding, however, have been creped in the quintessential Hasegawa fashion. A German edition of the books translated by Manfred Schneider was published in 1914.

For more information on the "Hasegawa Typeface" used in this set, please see this link and Dave's YouTube video below.

To purchase a reproduction of a page from this book carved by Dave and printed by Kenichi Kubota-san, please follow this link (dependent on availability).

These books were featured in one of the 'David's Choice' YouTube videos in August of 2019.