Tales of Old Japan

In 1871, a young British diplomat stationed in Japan compiled the first collection of Japanese tales ever published in English. The result is a window into a vanishing world: feudal Japan on the eve of its transformation during the Meiji Restoration. Algernon Mitford witnessed seppuku firsthand, and his account of that ceremony remains one of the most harrowing documents in Western literature on Japan. The centerpiece is the legend of the Forty-Seven Rônins, masterless samurai who spend years planning a bloody revenge for their lord's murder, knowing it will cost them their lives. Beyond the legendary, Mitford gathers ghost stories that prefigure gothic literature's darkest moments, Buddhist sermons that meditate on death, fairy tales where animals speak and rivers weep, and the cryptic plots of Noh plays. This is not sanitized Orientalism: these are stories of honor pushed to madness, loyalty that becomes indistinguishable from obsession, and a culture where suicide is美学 and vengeance is sacred. For readers who loved Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde or turn-of-the-century supernatural fiction, this is the real thing: Japan before the world changed it.