The Kenkyusha Co., Ltd. is a publishing house with headquarters in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. Its product range is centered on foreign language—mainly English—dictionaries and textbooks. The name, Kenkyūsha, can be translated as "study/research company".
History
The company was founded by Goichirō Kosakai as English Kenkyūsha in 1907 published the first edition of Elementary English Study one year later. In 1916 the company's name was changed to its present: Kenkyūsha. The predecessor of Senior High School English Study titled Examination and Student was launched in 1917. The company extended its product range in 1918 with the Japanese-English Dictionary, a large dictionary, compiled by Yoshitarō Takenobu. Kenkyūsha expands, establishing in 1919 a typesetting workshop on the slope of Kudan, a former street in Chiyoda, Tokyo, and — in 1920 — a printing house on Kagurazaka in Ushigome. In 1921, the first volume of the Eibungaku Series covering English literature appears. All of the 100 volumes are completed by 1932. Due to reconstruction, in 1924, the printing house is temporarily moved to Iidamachi. 1927 sees the completion of the printing shop on Kagurazaka. Another press is established in 1939 in Kichijōji, west of central Tokyo. In 1944, Kenkyūsha receives an assignment from Aki Yasutarō for The Rising Generation, a monthly magazine aimed at researchers and students of English literature. In the same year, the Japanese scholar Fumio Nakajima publishes Eigo no Jōshiki. Three years later, the Fuji plate-making factory is founded. The printing business is split off in 1951 under the Kenkyūsha Printing Corporation. In 1963 the company publishes The Kenkyūsha Shakespeareconsisting of 12 volumes. A year later, is launched together with the. A year after its 60th anniversary, in 1968, Kenkyūsha publishes in five volumes. The year 1984 saw big changes for the company. Kenkyūsha Printing built a new office in Nobidome, Niiza in Saitama Prefecture. The Fuji plate-making factory and the Kichijōji factory were moved to the new location and at the printing shop at Kudan, a typesetting factory was established.
Dictionaries
Kenkyūsha has been publishing dictionaries in various sizes for almost one hundred years. The following list is a selection of dictionaries published by the company together with the years of publication.
New English-Japanese Dictionary: 1927 by Yoshisaburō Okakura, 1980, 2002
Kenkyūsha's New Japanese-English Dictionary: 1918 by Yoshitarō Takenobu, 2003
New College English-Japanese Dictionary: 1967, 1994, 2003
New College Japanese-English Dictionary: 1995, 2002
English-Japanese Dictionary for the General Reader: 1984, 1999
Japanese-English Dictionary for the General Reader:
