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Secondary sourceBook1600

The Small Mirror of Genji

1600

A five-volume illustrated 17th-century digest of Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji, held at the Library of Congress.

This condensed, illustrated version retells the story Murasaki Shikibu wrote centuries earlier, showing how readers kept adapting her novel.

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Painted illustration with gold leaf borders showing courtiers in a riverboat procession on grey water with white wave lines, at upper right. At lower left, three women in layered robes sit on a green-floored veranda beside a bamboo blind. Red maple trees and flowers appear at right.
Unknown artist, The Small Mirror of Genji, 1600. Library of Congress.

About this source

What it is

This is an illustrated five-volume digest version of the Tale of Genji, created in the 17th century and dated 1600. It is a shortened, illuminated retelling of the long novel, held at the Library of Congress.

Why it matters

The Tale of Genji was written around the year 1000 by a court lady known by the pseudonym Murasaki Shikibu. The full novel is extremely long, with hundreds of characters, so by the Edo period abbreviated and illustrated versions like this one became common ways for readers to enjoy the story.

Look closer

  • Why might a shorter, illustrated version of a long novel become popular?
  • What do the illustrations add that the text alone cannot show?
  • What might be lost when a 400-character novel is condensed into a digest?

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

Primary source

The Tale of Genji

Murasaki Shikibu · c. 1010

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

Primary source

Kokin Wakashū

Ki no Tsurayuki and compilers · c. 905-920

Diary entry

Primary source

The Diary of Lady Murasaki

Murasaki Shikibu · c. 1008–1010

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

Primary source

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

Secondary source

Eiri Genji Monogatari

Yamamoto Shunshō · 1650

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