The Curious Casebook of Inspector Hanshichi : : Detective Stories of Old Edo / / Kidō Okamoto.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter UHP eBook Package 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Okamoto, Kidō,
• TeilnehmendeR: JAPANESE LIT PUB & PROMO CTR,.; MacDonald, Ian.
• Place / Publishing House: Honolulu : : University of Hawaii Press, , [2006]; ©2006
• Year of Publication: 2006
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (336 p.)

"That year, quite a shocking incident occurred. . . ." So reminisces old Hanshichi in a story from one of Japan's most beloved works of popular literature, Hanshichi torimonochô. Told through the eyes of a street-smart detective, Okamoto Kidô's best-known work inaugurated the historical detective genre in Japan, spawning stage, radio, movie, and television adaptations as well as countless imitations. This selection of fourteen stories, translated into English for the first time, provides a fascinating glimpse of life in feudal Edo (later Tokyo) and rare insight into the development of the fledgling Japanese crime novel.Once viewed as an exclusively modern genre derivative of Western fiction, crime fiction and its place in the Japanese popular imagination were forever changed by Kidô's "unsung Sherlock Holmes." These stories-still widely read today-are crucial to our understanding of modern Japan and its aspirations toward a literature that steps outside the shadow of the West to stand on its own.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- The Ghost of Ofumi -- The Stone Lantern -- The Death of Kampei -- The Room over the Bathhouse -- The Dancer's Curse -- The Mystery of the Fire Bell -- The Daimyo's Maidservant -- The Haunted Sash Pond -- Snow Melting in Spring -- Hiroshige and the River Otter -- The Mansion of Morning Glories -- A Cacophony of Cats -- Benten's Daughter -- The Mountain Party -- About the Translator