Author: Yanagisawa Bunzo &c.
Title: [Kaidan Kasane Monogatari].
Description: Osaka, Konomura Shosuke 1889 (Meiji 22). 18x13cm publisher's colour lithograph boards with cloth spine; [4],56,[2]pp on double folded leaves, one double page and four single page illustrations. Mild browning, a pleasing fresh copy. ¶ First edition of this version of the Kasane ghost story, a story that bulges with murder, greed, curses, possession and guilt. Supposedly based on a true story the saintly monk Yuten stars as the exorcist, and was the inspiration for prints, books, rakugo, kabuki and film.The double leaves seemed a bit extravagant for a book like this but all the paper is re-used from some other job with printing on the other side. This is a 'ball cover' (boru hyoshi, apparently a corruption of 'board') book - a signal of modernity and the Japanese equivalent of a yellowback: flimsy western style bindings with lithograph covers that rarely survive in such good shape. Worldcat finds only the NDL entry and a search of CiNii found no more.

Keywords: literature fiction thrillers occult c19th Japan ghosts meiji