First Canadian hardback edition (published simultaneously with the paperback one) of Minamata by W. Eugene Smith and Eileen M. Smith (1975)

First impression

Published simultaneously by Holt, Rinehart and Winston of Canada, Limited. 

Large format hardback in very good condition 

Signed by W. Eugene Smith to title page

Some wear and chipping to extremities of dust jacket, now in a removable protective sleeve 

The main page body has some minor toning to extremities of pages, however, the first and last few pages are exhibiting some foxing

Binding firm

192 pages

About

When Smith arrived in Minamata in 1971 he had already covered the bloody invasions of Tara-wa, Guam and Iwo Jima as LIFE’s WWII correspondent and had produced genre-defining photo essays. But the story made in Minamata would be his last, and arguably most influential, work. Smith became interested in traveling to the city after he was contacted by a member of the Minamata movement. He and his partner Aileen Mioko Smith packed up Smith’s loft in New York, travelled to Tokyo and, now married, relocated to Minamata along with their recently recruited assistant, Takeshi Ishikawa. 

The couple planned to stay for three months but ended up staying three years. “Of course it was very sensitive, we didn’t go barging in,” says Aileen, who photographed alongside Smith on the project and co-authored the resulting book. “We lived there, got to know the people, and photographed. The victims were receptive; the feeling was: ‘We want the world to know’.”