The Great Mirror of Male Love by Saikaku Ihara

In 1682, he published the first of his prose-works: Life of an Amorous Man ( Kōshoku ichidai otoko), which enjoyed great success. It was only in the last ten years of his life, after the commercial success of a long grief-stricken poem he wrote after the death of this wife in 1675, that he began to write prose. Throughout most of his career he had been known as a composer of comic linked verse ( haikai no renga). Saikaku was already an extremely popular author when Mirror of Male Love was published in 1687. The later, a much clumsier version, suffers by comparison with the Marquand edition.

A comparison between Marquand’s first printing (left) and a page from the facsimile of the second edition (right) indicates that the original woodblock for this sheet has been re-carved or replaced.

At this time, the original woodblock for the final page was altered (carved) to include the name of this publisher, Yorozuya Seibei of Edo Yorozuya: Just a few months later, there was a second printing of Mirror of Male Love-an eight volume set done in collaboration with a third publisher located in the capital city of Edo. It is the only printing of the book to bear the imprint of these publishers alone. The deluxe edition was collaboratively published by two Kamigata publishers: Fukaeya Tarōbei of Yodoyabashi suji, Gofukuchō, Osaka and Yamazaki Ichibei of Nijō Street in Kyoto. (To create the ten books, parts two and seven were each divided into two separate volumes.) 2 Distinct from other editions in which the eight parts of the novel were produced as eight books of standard size (roughly 18-22 x 13-14 cm), our copy was more extravagantly published as ten larger (27.3 x 19.4 cm) books. Marquand Library recently acquired one of only two known copies of the deluxe first edition of The Great Mirror of Male Love. Taunted by the boy, he then cuts off his right arm before decapitating him. A jealous lord uses a halberd to cut off the left arm of Korin, the young lover that has betrayed him. Volume 2b: Though Bearing an Umbrella, He was Rained Upon.

The Great Mirror of Male Love by Saikaku Ihara