Keiseikai toranomaki 傾城買虎之卷 [or] Tosei toranomaki [Pledged in Love to One, Bought by Another: A....
One double-page black & white woodcut. 48 folding leaves. Small 8vo, orig. green wrappers (wrappers a little tired), orig. block-printed title label on upper cover (label soiled), new stitching. [Edo]: Preface dated 1778.
First edition of this rare sharebon, stories revolving around humor and entertainments in the pleasure quarters, most popular in the 1770s and 1780s. This novel, a real “tearjerker,” is one of the masterpieces about the Yoshiwara pleasure quarters (see Cecilia Segawa Seigle, Yoshiwara: The Glittering World of the Japanese Courtesan, p. 141). The novel was a blockbuster of its time, focusing on the irreconcilability of romantic love... More