Introduction

In 2014 and 2016, the National Diet Library held a special exhibition entitled Autograph Manuscripts and Original Artwork of Well-Known People. These two exhibitions featured personal letters, postcards, and other handwritten documents by well-known Japanese from the 19th and 20th centuries. Now, a digital exhibition of this content can be enjoyed online by anyone at anytime and anywhere.

The digital exhibition includes portraits and bibliographic notes along with images of the autograph manuscripts, thereby providing viewers with a glimpse into the times and the frame of mind in which these documents and artworks were created. Have you ever wondered about the handwriting of people whom you learned about in school or whose books you’ve read? Come see what their autograph manuscripts look like.

While some of the images in the digital exhibition are unlinked, many have links to the National Diet Library Digital Collections. If an enlarged image is also available, a link is shown at the bottom right of the image.
Some of the linked images are only available via the NDL Digitized Contents Transmission Service. This content can be accessed onsite at an NDL partner library or by official registered users of the NDL, who reside in Japan.

• Digitized Contents Transmission Service for Individuals
• Digitized Contents Transmission Service for Libraries