Re: (sumo literature)First English Sumo Book

[Doreen Simmons <jz8d-smmn@asahi-net.or.jp>]

At 12:37 +0900 1/12/99, Rob Hoey wrote:
> A co-worker of mine  has brought in what looks like the first english sumo
> book which was published in 1959.
> It's called "Sumo the sport and the tradition" by J.A Sargeant. It has
> various pictures in it of former yokozunas Chiyonoyama, Tochinishiki,
> Wakanohana (grandfather of the Hanada brothers), Yoshibayama and Kagamisato.
> There is also a photo of the 1959 riji-cho Tokitsukaze. Quite an interesting
> old book with some interesting history on that time period.
> Has anyone else seen this book around? It would be ideal for any sumo
> collectors out there.

Rob,

This is really funny. Tuttle kept on reprinting that book for around 30
years, so unless the first edition has some value -- which I rather doubt --
there are millions of them around. I think they updated the photographs
once. Apart from the old names and pictures, it was a workmanlike effort
that filled a void for many years.

The irony of it was that Sargeant, an English teacher whose only previous
publications had been "Brush up your English" and "Son of Brush up your
English" -- or something like that -- produced this slender sumo book and
promptly expired, and his heirs were drawing royalties for decades
thereafter. Tuttle's various attempts at a replacement (this time for a flat
fee, not a royalty deal) led to the publication of several sumo books. First
Lora Sharnoff, at that time a Tuttle employee, was commissioned to write a
completely new book; but she got so incensed at the editorial changes being
made that she finally took her deathless prose to Weatherhill, an upmarket
rival. So a consortium of Tuttle editors did what seemed to be mainly a
cut-and-paste job from existing publications and, under the name of "Walter
Long," produced a paperback of the same size that finally replaced the
long-outdated Sargeant. A few years later, they finally commissioned David
Shapiro to rewrite the Walter Long book, keeping as much as possible to the
same format. The result is a neat little handbook that actually does the
job. The cover design of the two latter Tuttle books is the same, but the
Shapiro one is coloured bright red whilst the Long book is turquoise.




Doreen in sumoland

♪I'm not old -- just classic♪