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Secondary sourceBookca. 1650

The Illustrated Tale of Genji

Yamamoto Shunshō · ca. 1650

A 17th-century woodblock-printed illustrated edition of Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji by Yamamoto Shunshō.

This printed illustrated edition of Murasaki Shikibu's novel shows its spread through print in the Edo period.

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Open book showing handwritten cursive Japanese text in vertical columns on the left page, and on the right page a woodblock print of a courtly scene: a robed figure on a veranda near a lattice railing, with clouds and a distant town, and a second figure beside a screen.
Yamamoto Shunshō, The Illustrated Tale of Genji, ca. 1650. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

About this source

What it is

This is a set of twenty-four woodblock-printed volumes made around 1650 by the artist Yamamoto Shunshō, illustrating The Tale of Genji. It is held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Why it matters

This printed edition shows how Murasaki Shikibu's novel was reproduced and illustrated for a wider readership in the Edo period, centuries after it was first written. It reflects the growing popularity of printed books in Japan and the lasting fame of her story.

Look closer

  • What does the combination of text and image on the same page tell you about how readers experienced the story?
  • Why might the publisher have chosen to illustrate this scene?
  • What does the printed page leave out compared to the handwritten manuscripts of earlier centuries?

This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Murasaki Shikibu on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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Fragment of a decorated handscroll page with black calligraphic Japanese script running in vertical columns on gold-flecked paper with dark green and gold scattered patches and faint grass-like brushstrokes. A printed caption in the lower right reads in Japanese.Book

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Open double-page spread of a Japanese manuscript with gold and silver flecks scattered on brown-orange and dark mauve paper. Black cursive kana calligraphy runs in vertical columns on both pages.Book

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Diary entry

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Scan of a page of handwritten Japanese cursive calligraphy in brown ink on pale paper, written in vertical columns. This is the final part of the Tosa Nikki diary, copied by Fujiwara no Teika in the 13th century.Diary entry

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Tosa Nikki

Ki no Tsurayuki · 935 (copy 13th century)

Photograph of the front cover of a Japanese book bound in pale green-grey paper. A vertical cream label on the cover bears brush-written Japanese characters and a small seal-like stamp appears at lower left. A color calibration chart and a metric ruler are along the edges of the image.Book

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Eiri Genji Monogatari

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