About the "Soseki Collection"

The Soseki Collection consists of the books collected by Soseki Natsume (1867-1916), his manuscripts such as diaries, notebooks, examination papers and draft papers, and materials related to Soseki. This collection has almost all of the books kept by Soseki: about 1,650 books written in English or other Western languages, and about 1,200 books written in Japanese or Chinese. This collection also contains the books Soseki bought, which amount up to about 500, during his stay in England. Considering that Soseki was a scholar, the sum total of the books is not necessarily large. However, the marginal notes or underlines by Soseki, which are recorded in about thirty percent of the whole books, are attractive enough for scholars. The most distinctive point of the Soseki Collection is the fact that Soseki actually read, or at least tried to read, many of the books in the collection.

Toyotaka Komiya (1884-1966), who was one of Soseki's favorite disciples, and the Director of the Tohoku Imperial University Library at that time, endeavored to assemble the Soseki Collection. The project to carry the collection in to the library started in 1943 and ended in March 1944. Waseda-minami-machi, in which Soseki's house was located, was burnt down in an air raid on 10 March 1945-the Soseki Collection, important materials for the study of Soseki, narrowly escaped being destroyed thanks to the acquisition to Tohoku University. Komiya looked back on the situation of receiving the Soseki Collection:

If the books collected by Soseki are going to be used only by a few people, it is not fair. Our problem was to find out the best way to make them available for as many people as possible. We thought that it was to establish a museum, detaching Soseki's study, furniture, bookshelf and books from his house. But we could not afford to do so under the wartime situation-we had to change our plan into a more moderate one: to give his books to some library. . . . After due consideration, I decided to send the books to Tohoku University Library where I worked for. Tohoku University Library has several collections of the books, such as Wundt Collection and Schmarsow Collection. In addition, almost all of the books collected by Koukichi Kanou or Raphael von Koeber are given to the library. Kanou was one of Soseki's close friends, and Koeber was Soseki's mentor. In terms of the availability, it is not necessarily good to keep the Soseki Collection in Sendai; however, it is very natural to set the Soseki Collection among the Kanou Collection and the Koeber Collection in terms of spirituality. If the Soseki Collection should have a soul, the soul must be rejoiced to come to Sendai. I managed to prepare a room for the Soseki Collection and Koeber Collection, and hung their photographs on the wall. ('Soseki Collection' in Hito no koto jibun no koto. Originally Japanese, translated by Tohoku University Library.)

As mentioned above, the Soseki Collection was at first kept in the same room with the Koeber Collection in complying with Komiya's instructions. Now it is reserved in the stack room for valuable books. The Soseki Collection Catalogue (published in Japanese) was made in 1971. When Sendai Literature Museum opened, the project to make the Soseki Collection into microfilm was started in cooperation with Sendai City, which completed in March 1998.