Publications in existence at the time the book was published

Norman continues and refers to unnamed publications:

"Considering the high esteem in which it has always been held, it is really wonderful what few books there are up on it, and still more wonderful that such as there are have not dealt as fully with it as they might have.  Such books, or rather pamphlets, as have dealt with it had generally so done from the particular standpoint of some one of the many schools of jujutsu, and there is absolutely no doubt the originators of certain new schools have made history to suit their own purpose.  Still, there seems little doubt that, while kogusoku and kempo were originally two distinct arts, the former the art of seizing and the latter the art of gaining victory by pliancy, the two were afterwards amalgamated and formed into one art and that [is] jujutsu as we now know it."

Publications in existence in 1905 (excluding Dutch and German books) were few, so far as I am aware.  There were the publication of lectures to the Japan Society of London:

• (1888) by Kano and Lindsay;
• (1892) by Shidachi; and
• (1901) by Barton-Wright;

There were also articles published by Barton-Wright in "London Pearson's Magazine" in 1898 and 1899.

The accolade of the first author of a book (at least in England) goes to Yackichi Yabe.  In 1904 he published a series of 5 volumes on jujutsu.  It appears he had no great expertise but to the uneducated it was new and interesting.  The books helped a money strapped Japanese student who seized upon an opportunity.  He was not unique in this regard.  Nonetheless, it seems he has the distinction of becoming the first to be published in Britain. [3]

Sada Kazu Uyenishi published a well-known book in 1905 through the Athletic Publication company called "the Text-Book of Ju-jutsu as Practiced in Japan". 

The reference to there being "absolutely no doubt the originators of certain new schools have made history to suit their own purpose" could be a reference to Barton-Wright.  The 1899, article in "Pears Magazine" was entitled "Ju Jutsu and Bartitsu".  Bartitsu was the term Barton-Wright wished to use to promote the art to the English..  The other possibility, of course, was Kano's judo.  I'm not aware of any other "new schools" that could be the subject of this jibe.

Now we get to a real chestnut in the history of jujutsu which is the Chinese connection and the story of Chingempin.  It should be noted that both Kano and Lindsay, as well as Shidachi, debunk the Chinese connection and the story of the influence of Chingempin in their lectures to The Japan Society referred to above.  Norman however continues:

"As to the date when Jujutsu first became firmly established as an art necessary to the proper training of a warrior, that would appear to have been somewhere about the middle of the seventeenth century.  A Chinese refugee named Chingempin had apparently something to do with its introduction into Japan, for his name appears in nearly every pamphlet bearing upon the subject from a historic point of view.  But for all that the arts, like so many others originally borrowed from the Chinese, is now essentially Japanese."

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