Iwanami Shoten

Iwanami Shigeo founded the publishing firm Iwanami Shoten in the Kanda district of Tokyo in 1913. In its early years, the company published authors such as Natsume Sōseki, Kurata Hyakuzō and Abe Jiro. It also published academic and literary journals in the field of philosophy, including Shijo (1917) and Shicho (1921), science, including Kagaku (1931), and literature, such as Bungaku (1933). In 1927, it launched the Iwanami Bunko (Iwanami Library), a "major series of international works".

During the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Second World War, the firm was repeatedly censored because of its positions against the war and the Emperor. Iwanami Shigeo was even sentenced to two months in prison for the publication of the banned works of Tsuda Sōkichi (a sentence which he did not serve, however). Shortly before his death in 1946, he founded the newspaper Sekai, which had a great influence in post-war Japanese intellectual circles.

In 1955, the company released its Japanese language dictionary, Kōjien, which is highly regarded today and sold more than eleven million copies in 2007. During the post-war decades, it continued to publish numerous foreign classics as well as encyclopedias. In 2010, around 20,000 titles were released by Iwanami Shoten.