Onoya Sohachi

• Born: 1728
• Died: 1811/11/4
• Other Names: 大惣 (Daisou, Oosou), 江口新六 (Eguchi Shinroku), 江口富次郎 (Eguchi Tomijirou) 胡月堂 (Kogetsudou)
• Japanese: 大野屋惣八 (Oonoya Souhachi)

Ônoya Sôhachi was the proprietor of a prominent and successful Edo period kashihonya (booklender) business, based in the Nagashima 5-chôme area of Nagoya.

Eguchi Shinroku, also known as Tomijirô, was born in 1728 and grew up in Ôno village, Chita district, in Owari province. As an adult, he established a combination liquor store & pharmacy in Nagoya, calling it the Ônoya after his hometown, and taking on the name Ônoya Sôhachi for himself; in 1767, he converted the shop into a booklending business. Though originally located in the Motoshige-chô neighborhood of the city, Ônoya later moved his shop to the Nagashima area, where it remained into the Meiji period.

Though Sôhachi died in 1811, later generations of proprietors carried on the name "Ônoya Sôhachi," and the business. Known as Ôsô or Daisô (from the "Ô" in Ônoya and the "sô" in Sôhachi), the business was particularly prosperous and popular during the Bunka-Bunsei periods (i.e. c. 1804-1829), being patronized by commoners and samurai alike, and producing or lending out novels, calendars, and works on theatre, religion, fortune-telling, astronomy, geography, medicine, shingaku, among many other subjects. The shop's extensive collections were housed in three warehouses, which functioned, in a sense, like as a city library for the people of Nagoya. The shop is said to have been frequently visited as well by the likes of Takizawa Bakin, Jippensha Ikku, Ôta Nanpo, and other artists and writers who traveled along the Tôkaidô. In its later years, the business was also patronized by prominent Meiji figures such as Tsubouchi Shôyô.

With the expansion of public libraries, university libraries, and the like in the Meiji period, however, the value of a kashihonya declined dramatically. Daisô (or Ôsô) sold much of its collection, some 21,000 volumes, to the Imperial Library, Tokyo Imperial University Library, Kyoto Imperial University Library, and other institutions in 1899. It seems unclear how many generations of proprietors the business passed through, with some sources reading four (Seijirô, Teizô, Sôtarô, and then Sôtarô's widow), and others seven; in any case, following the death of the last proprietor, a meeting was held of many of the relatives, who collectively decided to close down the business. When exactly this took place, however, is also unclear. Some sources indicate the business closed down in 1899, others 1912, and others still saying it lasted for "150 years" (i.e. at least until 1917). In any case, its influence goes undisputed, with Meiji period scholar and writer Mizutani Futô even calling it top, or first, in the whole country.

References

• Yokoyama Manabu 横山学, Ryûkyû koku shisetsu torai no kenkyû 琉球国使節渡来の研究, Tokyo: Yoshikawa kôbunkan (1987), 209-211.
• "Ôsô," Toshokan jôhôgaku yôgo jiten, Nihon toshokan jôhô gakkai, 2013.
• "Ônoya Sôhachi," Nihon jinmei daijiten, Kodansha, 2015.
• "Ônoya Sôhachi (Daisô)," Zôshoin no sekai, National Diet Library, 2003.