This collection of Japanese women's diary literature (nikki bungaku) begins with The Takemitsu Journal (also known as The Tale of the Tō nomine Lesser Captain, c. 962), an important precursor and model for the famous Kagerō Diary, and Tales of Toyokage (c. 971), a fictionalized re-working of his own poems by Regent Koremasa himself. It also includes the first complete English translations of the Hon'in no Jiju and of the narrative section of The Collected Poems of Lady Ise. The volume concludes with the Tales of Takamura (1185-1333), which Mostow describes as a site of struggle between masculine and feminine narrative styles.

Joshua S. Mostow is professor in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.