Jiu-Jitsu, Japanese Feats of Attack and Defense in Personal Encounter

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o author or year of printing is available for this book (or rather booklet). There is anyhow mentioned the Meiji government in Japan, and a certain length of time since the art was introduced to sivilians in Japan for the first time. Adding these things up makes it probable that the book is from 1910 to 1920. The drawings and the yellowing of the pages might indicate that it is even printed before 1910. Whoever wrote the book also states that it had been only a few years since the art was shown in USA for the first time, something that happened around the turn of the century.

It is absolutely a great possibility that the book is written by H. Irving Hancock. I say this because the subtitle: "Japanese feats of Attack and Defence in Personal Encounter" is identical to the one that is used on his book:: "Jiu-Jitsu Combat Tricks" (click here).

This booklet, which may have been a "teaser" or maybe a simpified version of the book mentioned above, is #1266 in a series of such from the publisher. These are on various topics meant for education, sports and hobbies. The price was either 10 or 25 cents, which I am sure must have been a rather large amount of money at the time for such tiny books.

There are very few drawings in the book - just one per technique. On the other hand there is a bit of text describing each technique (or trick as it is called here). The text does give the budding student a fairly good understanding of each "trick". There is a long and interesting introduction to ju jitsu, as it was viewed at the time. It is mentioned how the art came to the USA, and at the end of the book there is even a chapter on ju jitsu for women. 

The author is positive towards the art (understandably so..). Still he issues a warning that believing ju jitsu would solve any problem could prove to be foolish. Throughout the text the tone is neutral for a book on this subject - which is fine by me. There is a lot of hype and mysticism describing these old arts!

There is not much to gain here, technically speaking. But from a historical point of view this makes a very interesting read. And here else can you find someone doing ju jitsu described as a "jiu-jitsuit". How cool is that? That is almost a religious term... :-)

You'll find lots of old, rare and no longer in print books over at Abebooks. They have something like 30 million books online at any given time. Always do a search there!

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