You might also enjoy:
Bornoff, Nicholas, Pink Samurai, The Pursuit and Politics of Sex in Japan (Grafton Books, London, 1991)
Dalby, Liza, Geisha (University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1983)
Danly, Robert Lyons, In the Shade of Spring Leaves: The Life and Writings of Higuchi Ichiyo, A Woman of Letters in Meiji Japan (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1981)
Downer, Lesley, Geisha: The Secret History of a Vanishing World (Headline, 2000)
Hibbett, Howard, The Floating World in Japanese Fiction (Oxford University Press, London, 1959)
Screech, Timon, Sex and the Floating World: Erotic Images in Japan 1700–1820 (Reaktion Books, 1999)
Seidensticker, Edward, Kafu the Scribbler: The Life and Writings of Nagai Kafu, 1879–1959 (Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 1965)
Hana’s favourite romance, The Plum Calendar, is partially translated in:
Shirane, Haruo (ed.), Early Modern Japanese Literature, An Anthology, 1600–1900 (Columbia University Press, New York, 2008)
Ezo
Beasley, W. G., Japan Encounters the Barbarian: Japanese Travellers in America and Europe (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1995)
Bennett, Terry (ed.), Japan and the Illustrated London News: Complete Record of Reported Events, 1853 to 1899 (Global Oriental, Folkestone, 2006)
Hillsborough, Romulus, Shinsengumi: The Shogun’s Last Samurai Corps (Tuttle Publishing, Tokyo, Rutland Vermont, Singapore, 2005)
Satow, Ernest Mason (translator), Kinse Shiriaku: A History of Japan from the First Visit of Commodore Perry in 1853 to the Capture of Hakodate by the Mikado’s Forces in 1869 (Japan Mail office, Yokohama, 1873, facsimile published by Kessinger Publishing)
Books on the period in general
Meech-Pekarik, Julia, The World of the Meiji Print: Impressions of a New Civilization (Weatherhill, 1987)
Naito, Akira, Edo, The City that Became Tokyo: An Illustrated History, illustrations by Kazuo Hozumi, translated, adapted and introduced by H. Mack Horton (Kodansha International, Tokyo, New York, London, 2003)
Nishiyama, Matsunosuke, Edo Culture: Daily Life and Diversions in Urban Japan, 1600–1868 (University of Hawai’i Press, Honolulu, 1997)
Seidensticker, Edward, Low City, High City: Tokyo from Edo to the Earthquake, 1867–1923 (Alfred A. Knopf Inc., New York, 1983)
Shiba, Goro, Remembering Aizu: The Testament of Shiba Goro, edited by Ishimitsu Mahito, translated by Teruko Craig (University of Hawai’i Press, Honolulu, 1999)
Diaries of Victorian travellers of the period
Alcock, Rutherford, The Capital of the Tycoon, Volumes I and II (Elibron Classics, 2005, first published 1863)
Cortazzi, Hugh, Mitford’s Japan: Memories & Recollections 1866–1906 (Japan Library, 2002)
Satow, Ernest, A Diplomat in Japan: The Inner History of the Critical Years in the Evolution of Japan When the Ports were Opened and the Monarchy Restored (Stone Bridge Press, 2006, first published 1921)
Samurai films/DVDs set in this period
When the Last Sword is Drawn, directed by Yojiro Takita, 2003
Gohatto, directed by Nagisa Oshima, 1999
Twilight Samurai, directed by Yoji Yamada, 2002
Hidden Blade, directed by Yoji Yamada, 2004
And a stunningly beautiful post-modern film set in the Yoshiwara
Sakuran, directed by Mika Ninagawa, 2006
A website on the Yoshiwara
www.oldtokyo.com/yoshiwara.html
And a ship
Anyone fascinated by the Kaiyo Maru should make a trip to Portsmouth to see HMS Warrior, which was built in 1860, at almost exactly the same time: www.hmswarrior.org
About the Author
Lesley Downer’s mother was Chinese and her father a professor of Chinese, so she grew up in a house full of books on Asia. But it was Japan, not China, that proved the more alluring. She lived there for a total of some fifteen years.
She has written many books about the country and its culture. To research the bestselling Geisha: The Secret History of a Vanishing World, she lived among the geisha and little by little found herself being transformed into one of them. Her first novel, The Last Concubine, was set in the women’s palace in the great city of Edo, a harem-like complex, home to three thousand women and only one man – the shogun. It was shortlisted for the 2008 Romantic Novel of the Year Award.
Lesley has presented television programmes on Japan for Channel 4, the BBC and NHK. She lives in London with her husband, the author Arthur I. Miller, and still makes sure she goes to Japan every year.
Also by Lesley Downer
Non-fiction
Madame Sadayakko: The Geisha Who Seduced the West
The Brothers: The Hidden World of Japan’s Richest Family
On the Narrow Road to the Deep North
Fiction
The Last Concubine
*Published in the United States as Women of the Pleasure
Quarters: The Secret History of the Geisha
For more information on Lesley Downer and her books, see her
website at www.lesleydowner.com