Booth, Alan, Looking for the Lost: Journeys Through a Vanishing Japan, Kodansha International, New York, Tokyo, London, 1995. Witty and well-informed account of a journey in Saigo’s footsteps through Kyushu.
Buck, James H., ‘The Satsuma Rebellion of 1877. From Kagoshima through the Siege of Kumamoto Castle’, Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Winter 1973)
Cortazzi, Hugh, Dr Willis in Japan, 1862–1877, British Medical Pioneer, Athlone Press, London and Dover, New Hampshire, 1985. Dr William Willis, a brilliant surgeon who saved many lives, worked in Aizu and later lived in Kagoshima from 1870 to 1877, right up until the Satsuma Rebellion.
Huffman, James L., Politics of the Meiji Press: The Life of Fukuchi Gen’ichiro, University Press of Hawaii, Honolulu, 1980. Fukuchi, the pioneering Japanese journalist, went to the front line to cover the Satsuma Rebellion.
Man, John, Samurai: The Last Warrior, Bantam Press, London, 2011
Morris, Ivan, The Nobility of Failure: Tragic Heroes in the History of Japan, Secker & Warburg, London, 1975
Mounsey, Augustus Henry, The Satsuma Rebellion: An Episode of Modern Japanese History (1879), first published John Murray, London, 1879; reprinted by Kessinger Legacy Reprints, 2011. A wonderfully detailed and accessibly written contemporary account.
Ravina, Mark, The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey, 2004. The most up-to-the-minute scholarly work.
Yates, Charles L., Saigo Takamori: The Man Behind the Myth, Kegan Paul International, London and New York, 1995
Books and articles that deal with the period in general
Bennett, Terry (ed.), Japan and the Illustrated London News: Complete Record of Reported Events, 1853 to 1899, Global Oriental, Folkestone, 2006
Keene, Donald, Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, Columbia University Press, New York, 2002
Meech-Pekarik, Julia, The World of the Meiji Print: Impressions of a New Civilization, Weatherhill, New York and Tokyo, 1987
Mertz, John Pierre, Novel Japan: Spaces of Nationhood in Early Meiji Narrative, 1870–88, Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2003
Roberts, John G., Mitsui: Three Centuries of Japanese Business, Weatherhill, New York and Tokyo, 1973
Seidensticker, Edward, Low City, High City: Tokyo from Edo to the Earthquake, 1867–1923, Alfred A. Knopf Inc., New York, 1983
Acknowledgements
I owe a debt to the Japan historians whose work I’ve drawn on to write this book, though I’ve taken the odd liberty in the interests of telling a good story. As always, all mistakes, misinterpretations, etc., are my own.
In Kagoshima I’d like to thank Professor Haraguchi Izumi, the pre-eminent expert on the period, Satsuma history and Saigo, who, far from disapproving, as I’d feared, embraced the concept of fictionalizing Saigo and his life with great enthusiasm and joie de vivre and offered many brilliant suggestions. He introduced me to Higashikawa Ryutaro and his wife, Miwa, who showed me around the key sites very knowledgeably. I had expert guidance too on all matters Saigo from Fukuda Kenji of the excellent and comprehensive Museum of the Meiji Restoration and Matsuo Chitoshi of the Shokoshuseikan Museum at Iso. Heartfelt thanks to Morita Mikiko of the Kagoshima Prefectural Visitors’ Bureau not only for her help and introductions but also for a memorable night out in Kagoshima. Many thanks too to Kylie Clark at the Japan National Tourism Organization in London for introductions, maps and enthusiastic support.
I was fortunate to be able to use the resources of several wonderful libraries, including the Diet Library in Tokyo, where I pored over newspapers of the period, and the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London (SOAS). I also appreciated the superb Reimeikan Museum in Kagoshima and the Saigo Nanshu Memorial Museum. In Tokyo I stayed, as always, at the International House and enjoyed all its resources including its excellent library.
Huge thanks to my agent, Bill Hamilton, who as always provided brilliant ideas, wise advice and sterling support, above and beyond, and to Jennifer Custer and everyone at A. M. Heath.
My thanks to my two editors – Selina Walker, with whom I discussed the book in its early stages; and Catherine Cobain at Transworld, who was my careful, thoughtful and supportive editor for the later stages. I’m much indebted to her and to her team – Deborah Adams, Lisa Horton, Phil Lord and all at Transworld. My appreciation too to Sakiko Takada for the beautiful calligraphy on the cover, which reads ‘The Floating Bridge of Dreams’. Thanks to Suzanne Perrin, Heidi Potter of the Japan Society and Rupert Faulkner of the V&A for help in tracking down the right kimono for the cover and to Jonathan Rich and all who worked on it. And ‘Merci’ to Claude Grangier for the French proverbs and tongue twisters!
Thanks too to Kuniko Tamae for her advice on all things Japanese, including very important matters like whether a name was suitable for a first, second or third son, and much else.
As always, last but most important of all is my husband, Arthur, without whose love, good humour and excellent cooking I couldn’t possibly have written this book. He read each draft carefully and made sure I got the rifles and cannons right and that the men talked like men and not like sissies. We visited Japan together in 2011 right after the huge earthquake and tsunami of 11 March (which struck very close to Aizu Wakamatsu). We visited Meiji Village, where I was able to step inside a Meiji-period beef restaurant and barracks, went to Sengaku Temple where the forty-seven ronin are buried and in Kagoshima soaked in the steaming waters of an outdoor hot spring overlooking the sea at the foot of Sakurajima volcano.
This book is dedicated to him.
Lesley Downer
About the Author
Lesley Downer’s mother was Chinese and her father a professor of Chinese, so she grew up in a house full of books on Asia. But it was Japan, not China, that proved the more alluring. She lived there for a total of fifteen years.
Her books on Japan include On the Narrow Road to the Deep North, which was made into a Channel 4 documentary, Journey to A Lost Japan; the best-selling Geisha: The Secret History of a Vanishing World, for which she spent half a year living among geisha; and Madame Sadayakko: The Geisha who Seduced the West, on Puccini’s model for Madam Butterfly. She is the author of two previous novels, The Last Concubine, short-listed for the Romantic Novel of the Year Award, and The Courtesan and the Samurai.
Lesley has presented television programmes on Japan for Channel 4, the BBC and NHK. She lives in London with her husband, the author Arthur I. Miller, and goes to Japan every year.
Visit her website at www.lesleydowner.com
Also by Lesley Downer
Fiction
The Last Concubine
The Courtesan and the Samurai
Non-fiction
Madame Sadayakko: The Geisha Who Seduced the West
Geisha: The Secret History of a Vanishing World*
The Brothers: The Hidden World of Japan’s Richest Family
On the Narrow Road to the Deep North
*Published in the United States as Women of the Pleasure Quarters: The Secret History of the Geisha
For more information on Lesley Downer and her books, see her website at www.lesleydowner.com
TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
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First published in Great Britain
in 2012 by Bantam Press as Across a Bridge of Dreams
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Corgi edition published 2013 as The Samurai’s Daughter
Copyright © Lesley Downer 2012
Lesley Downer has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
The quotation here is from John Pie
rre Mertz, Novel Japan: Spaces of Nationhood in Early Meiji Narrative, 1870–88, Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies Number 48 (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan, 2003), p. 1. Copyright 2003 The Regents of the University of Michigan. Used with permission of the publisher.
Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.
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Lesley Downer, The Samurai's Daughter
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