Ko-soushi

[Sō Haruko]

I'm reading through _Tosa Mitsunobu and the Small Scroll_, and just bumped into a new word to me: ko-soushi. This word apparently implies a booklet-style document rather than a scroll (emaki). The context in this case was referring to a poetry manuscript given from Sanetaka to Prince Katsuhito.

Anyone know anything about these? Searching the web in English has turned up a big fat zero for me so far, and I'm curious as to what they look like.

[solveig]

Noble Cousin!

Greetings from Solveig! "ko" is probably just 小 (small) and "soushi" is probably the following from JDIC:

草紙; 草子; 双紙; 冊子 【そうし】 (n) (1) written work (esp. a bound text, as opposed to a scroll); (2) a text written entirely in kana; (3) graphic novel (esp. one created between the 12th and 19th centuries); (4) notebook (for practicing kana, drawing pictures, etc.); (5) rough draft [Edit][L][G][GI] [L][G][GI] [L][G][GI] [L][G][GI][W] [JW]

[Deleted]

Jan 17, 2013 1:11:14 GMT -5 Sō Haruko said:

This word apparently implies a booklet-style document rather than a scroll (emaki).(...) I'm curious as to what they look like.

I can't say exactly, but I've seen two types of "small booklet" come out of Japan.

The first is essentially a scroll, accordion folded, with covers pasted on the front and back.

The second takes this accordion book, and stiches along one edge so that each "leaf" of the book is actually double-thickness.

Here is a good site about Japanese bookbinding - homepages.nildram.co.uk/~dawe5/bookbinding_pages/BB_welcome2.html

[Sō Haruko]

Thank you both!