This book is an annotated collection of English-language documents by foreigners writing about Japan's kabuki theatre in the half-century after the country was opened to the West in 1853. Using memoirs, travelogues, diaries, letters, and reference books, it contains all signif...

Samuel L. Leiter, distinguished professor (emeritus) of Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, has published thirty books on Japanese theatre, the great stage directors, New York theatre history, and Shakespeare.

List of Figures

Acknowledgments

Part I: Overview

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: A Brief Survey of Meiji Kabuki

Part II: The 1860s

Chapter 3: From Japan through American Eyes (1859; 1860), by Francis Hall

Chapter 4: From Ten Weeks in Japan: "Japanese Drama" (1860), by Rev. George Smith

Chapter 5: From Japan through American Eyes (1861; 1862), by Francis Hall

Chapter 6: From the Capital of the Tycoon: "Osaca" (1862), by Si Rutherford Alcock

Chapter 7: From A Lady's Visit to Manila and Japan (1862) by Anna D'Almeida

Chapter 8: "Japanese Theaters" (1864), by Humbert Aimé

Chapter 9: From A Diplomat in Japan (1866?), by Sir Ernest Satow

Chapter 10: More from the 1860s, by Jacob Mortimer Silver, R. Mountenney Jephson, and Edward Pennell Elmhirst

Part III: 1870s

Chapter 11: From Japanese Episodes: "A Day in a Japanese Theatre" (1872), by Edward H. House

Chapter 12: From Clara's Diary: "Kabuki-the Japanese Theater" (1876), by Clara A.N. Whitney

Chapter 13: From Japan Day by Day: "The Theatre" (1877, 1878), by Edward S. Morse

Chapter 14: "Theatricals" (1878), by Isabella L. Bird

Chapter 15: From Clara's Diary: Part I: "Ch¿shingura" (1878), by Clara A.N. Whitney

Chapter 16: From Awakening Japan (1879), by Erwin Baelz

Chapter 17: From Clara's Diary (1879): "Entertaining General Grant"; "A Western Style Drama", by Clara A.N. Whitney

Chapter 18: More from the 1870s, by William Elliot Griffis, Christopher Dresser, Arthur Collins Maclay, William Gray Dixon, Charles H. Eden, and Mrs. Julia D. Carrothers

Part IV: The 1880s

Chapter 19: From Japan Day by Day: "The Theatre" (1882), by Edward S. Morse

Chapter 20: From Jinrikisha Days in Japan: "Japanese Theatre" (1889), by Eliza Rumaha Scidmore

Chapter 21: From A Japanese Interior (1889), by Alice Mabel Bacon

Chapter 22: More from the 1880s, by Thomas W. Knox, Arthur H. Crow, Andrew Carnegie, William Henry Lucy, Henry Knollys, Henry Fauld

Part V: The 1890s

Chapter 23: From A Diplomatist's Wife in Japan: "Danjuro, a Great Actor" (1890), by Mary Crawford Fraser

Chapter 24: From The Japs at Home (1892), by Douglas Sladen

Chapter 25: From Lotos-Time in Japan (1894), by Henry T. Finck

Chapter 26: From Japan: A Record in Colour (1896): "Art and the Drama," by Mortimer Menpes

Chapter 27: "Japan's Stage and Greatest Actor" (1896), by Robert P. Porter

Chapter 28: From Japanese Plays and Playfellows (1898): "Popular Plays"; "Afternoon Calls," by Osman Edwards

Chapter 29: More from the 1890s, by Adolfo Farsari, M.B. Cook, G.J. Younghusband, Mae St. John Bramhall, Katherine Schuyler Baxter, William Eleroy Curtis, S.C.F. Jackson, Stafford Ransome

Part VI: The 1900s

Chapter 30: From Tales from Tokio: "Shibaya to Yakusha" (1900), by Clarence Ludlow Brownell

Chapter 31: From Awakening Japan (1903), by Erwin Baelz

Chapter 32: From Present-Day Japan: "The Drama" (1904), by Augusta M. Campbell Davidson

Chapter 33: From Things Japanese: "Theatre" (1904), by Basil Hall Chamberlain

Chapter 34: From Rare Days in Japan: "At the Theatre" (1906), by George Trumbull Ladd

Chapter 35: From Smiling 'Round the World: "Visit to a Japanese Theatre, Tokyo" (1908), by Marshall P. Wilder

Chapter 36: From Every-Day Japan: "The Japanese Stage" (1909), by Arthur Lloyd

Chapter 37: From Japan and the Japanese (1910), by Walter Tyndale

Chapter 38: From The Full Recognition of Japan (1911), by Robert P. Porter

Chapter 39: From Japan of the Japanese, by Joseph H. Longford

Chapter 40: More from the 1900s (and Beyond), by Anna C. Hartshorne, Fred Gaisberg, Douglas Sladen, Walter Del Mar, George H. Rittner, Ernest W. Clement, W. Petrie Watson, Eleanora Mary D'Anethan, Clive Holland, Anonymous, Evelyn Adam, and A.H. Exner

Glossary

Bibliography

About the Editor