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Secondary sourceBook1925

Title frame of The Tale of Genji, Arthur Waley translation

Arthur Waley · 1925

The decorative title page from Arthur Waley's 1925 English translation of Murasaki Shikibu's novel.

This is the title page of an English translation of Murasaki Shikibu's novel, showing its spread to new readers long after her death.

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Decorative printed title frame: a black-and-white border of diamond lattice patterns and stylized flowers surrounds a blank central panel, with a small red flower motif at the centre of the panel.
Title frame, The Tale of Genji, translated by Arthur Waley, 1925.

About this source

What it is

This is the title frame from Arthur Waley's 1925 English translation of The Tale of Genji. The decorative border uses lattice patterns and flower motifs around a blank panel with a small red flower design.

Why it matters

Murasaki Shikibu wrote the novel in Japanese around the early 11th century. Waley's translation, made centuries later, helped bring her story to English-speaking readers for the first time, showing how her work reached far beyond Japan.

Look closer

  • Why might a translator design a decorative title page rather than a plain one?
  • What does the existence of this translation tell you about the novel's importance outside Japan?
  • What might be changed or lost when a story is translated into another language?

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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