The October meeting will be a very special event in more ways than one. Not only will it be attended by our Patrons, T.I.H. Prince and Princess Takamado, as already announced, but they have also invited T.I.H. The Crown Prince and Princess to come with them. Secondly, we are greatly indebted to the outgoing Swedish ambassador, Mr. Krister Kumlin, who offered us the use of his embassy for the meeting; unfortunately he will have left the country by then, and his successor will not yet have presented his credentials, so the occasion, which will include a small reception, will be hosted by the charge d' affaires Mr. Karl Leifland.

Important (1): For security reasons, only persons who have made reservations will be admitted to the Swedish Embassy for Dr. Donald Keene's lecture. Members and their personal guests accompanying them are welcome but there is a limited seating capacity of 90 persons. To secure your seat please fax the Asiatic Society Office (03-5976-6569) or send an e-mail message <asj@gol.com> by 5:00 p.m. on Friday October 25, 2002. Personal IDs are required at the registration desk. The Swedish Embassy is located just past the Okura Hotel South Wing (annex) building. It is a short walk up the hill from Kamiyacho station on the Hibiya line. No parking is available at or near the embassy.

Important (2): Protocol requires all attendees to be seated before 6:15 p.m. after which our patrons Prince and Princess Takamado as well as Their Imperial Highnesses The Crown Prince and Princess will be arriving. We regret that late-comers cannot be admitted to the hall. The registration desk will be opened at 5:30 p.m. and we recommend that you aim at arriving before 6:00 p.m. All attendees are invited to the reception after Dr. Keene's lecture.

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We are so delighted that the outstanding Japanologist Dr. Donald Keene has found the time to accede to our request for him to speak to us. Very appropriately, this will be the third time Dr. Keene has taken part in our anniversary celebrations. He was one of those who spoke at a special meeting held to celebrate our centenary in 1972, and he also addressed us, on "The Kojiki as literature", when we celebrated our 110th anniversary in 1982, as well as addressing us in 1974 and 1976.

It may be fair to say that Dr. Keene needs no introduction, but anyway we will pick out items from his c.v. He was born in New York, and graduated from Columbia College (as it was) in 1942 with honours in Comparative literature. He then entered a U.S. Navy Japanese language school, and from 1943-46 he served with the U.S. Navy as a translator and interpreter of Japanese. He followed this up with two years of graduate study at Columbia and Harvard Universities, and then had five years of residence at Cambridge University, where he served as Assistant Lecturer and later Lecturer in Japanese and Korean from 1948-53, and received his M.A. Meanwhile, in 1949 he received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. He spent two years as a Fellow at Kyoto University from 1953-55, and from that time until his retirement in 1992 he was professor of Japanese at Columbia University. In 1978 he received his Litt. D. from Cambridge University, and since then he has received honorary Litt. Ds. from a number of universities, including his own in 1997. He has been awarded many prizes, beginning with the Kikuchi Kan Prize in 1962, when he was the only foreigner to have been so honoured. In 1975 he was decorated with the Order of the Rising Sun, Third Class, and in 1993 with the next higher class of the same order.

He has published about 25 books in English consisting of studies of Japanese literature and culture, and about 30 books in Japanese, some written originally in Japanese and some translated from English. The fourth and concluding volume of his history of Japanese literature was published in August 1993 under the title Seeds in the Heart. A study of Ashikaga Yoshimasa and his age has been appearing serially in Japanese, and will be published in book form next January, and probably later in English.

His biography of Emperor Meiji was published in Japanese last year, and in English this year, as Emperor of Japan: Meiji and his world 1852-1912, and this will form the subject of his lecture to us. It may equally be said of his subject that he needs no introduction, and in fact Dr. Keene has excused himself from writing an abstract of his talk, as he is under immediate pressure of work. So this will be a case of "tanoshimi ni shimasu", but we can be certain that his talk will be tanoshii!