Five Women Who Loved Love: Amorous Tales from 17th-Century Japan

by Ihara Saikaku, De Bary William T. (Translator), Saikaku Ihara, William Theodore De Bary, William T. De Bary (Translator)

Overview

First published in 1686, this collection of five novellas was an immediate bestseller in the bawdy world that was Genroku Japan, and the book's popularity has increased with age, making it today a literary classic like Boccaccio's Decameron, or the works of Rabelais.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780804801843
Publisher:	Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd.
Publication date:	12/28/1989
Series:	Tuttle Classics Series
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.12(w) x 203.20(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Ihara Saikaku (1641-1693) has been called "the greatest popular Japanese novelist of the 17th century." Also a poet, Saikaku founded the ukiyo-zoshi (books of the floating world) genre, which flourished between the 1680s and the 1770s.

Wm. Theodore de Bary (born August 9, 1919), is an American sinologist and East Asian literature scholar who has edited numerous books relating to primarily Japanese and Chinese literature, history and culture. He is recognized as essentially creating the field of Neo-Confucian studies.

Editorial Reviews

"Five charming novellas … which have astonishing freshness, color, and warmth." —The New Yorker

From the Publisher