Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1922 edition. Excerpt: ... A WOMAN'S DIARY Recently there was put into my hands a somewhat remarkable manuscript -- seventeen long narrow sheets of soft paper, pierced with a silken string, and covered with fine Japanese characters. It was a kind of diary, containing the history of a woman's married life, recorded by herself. The writer was dead; and the diary had been found in a small work-box (haribako) which had belonged to her. The friend who lent me the manuscript gave me leave to translate as much of it as I might think worth publishing. I have gladly availed myself of this unique opportunity to present in English the thoughts and feelings, joys and sorrows, of a simple woman of the people -- just as she herself recorded them in the frankest possible way, never dreaming that any foreign eye would read her humble and touching memoir. But out of respect to her gentle ghost, I have tried to use the manuscript in such a way only as could not cause her the least pain if she were yet in the body, and able to read me. Some parts I have omitted, because I thought them sacred. Also I have left out a few details relating to customs or to local beliefs that the Western reader could scarcely understand, even with the aid of notes. And the names, of course, have been changed. Otherwise I have followed the text as closely as I could -- making no changes of phrase except when the Japanese original could not be adequately interpreted by a literal rendering. In addition to the facts stated or suggested in the diary itself, I could learn but very little of the writer's personal history. She was a woman of the poorest class; and from her own narrative it appears that she remained unmarried until she was nearly thirty. A younger sister had been married several years previously;...