The history of the book in nineteenth-century Japan follows an uneven course that resists the simple chronology often used to mark the divide between premodern and modern literary history.

By examining the obscured histories of publication, circulation, and reception of widely consumed literary works from late Edo to the early Meiji period, Jonathan Zwicker traces a genealogy of the literary field across a long nineteenth century: one that stresses continuities between the generic conventions of early modern fiction and the modern novel. In the literature of sentiment Zwicker locates a tear-streaked lens through which to view literary practices and readerly expectations that evolved across the century.

Practices of the Sentimental Imagination emphasizes both qualitative and quantitative aspects of literary production and consumption, balancing close readings of canonical and noncanonical texts, sophisticated applications of critical theory, and careful archival research into the holdings of nineteenth-century lending libraries and private collections. By exploring the relationships between and among Japanese literary works and texts from late imperial China, Europe, and America, Zwicker also situates the Japanese novel within a larger literary history of the novel across the global nineteenth century.

Contents
	Figures and Tables	xiii
	Introduction: Approaching the Archive-Numbers, Form,
	and the Seriousness of Sentiment	1
1	The Short Nineteenth Century, the Long Nineteenth
	Century, and the Garden of Literary Forms	13
		Tears, the Book, and the History of the Literary Function 13/
		Japan's Two Nineteenth Centuries 17/ "Furthermore, there is 
		a Garden of Literary Forms. . . ." 28/ "A Community with
		no visible presence": Print and the Social Imaginary 47
2	Under the Spell of Tears	71
		A Sociological Experiment 71/ Segawa's Ghost 75/ The Sea
		Cucumber and the Crab 85/ The Sorcerer and his Magic:
		Tamenaga Shunsui and the Economy of Sentiment 109
3	The Archaeology of Misplaced Ideas	125
		A World Without Walls 125/ Importing the Novel to Japan:
		Nagasaki circa 1800 128/ Robinson Crusoe Stories 140/
		Books from Nanjing, Books from Paris 154
4	The Long Road Ahead	168
		Saikaku, Tolstoy, and the Serial Novel 168/ The Fraternization
		of Impossibilities 175/ The Politics of Tears 190
	Epilogue: Commodities of the Imagination	205
Reference Matter
	Character List	223
	Works Cited	227
	Index		243
Figures and Tables
Figures
1		From Fuji no Karamaro's Itako zekkushu (1802), 
		illustration by Katsushika Hokusai	18
2		"Reading" ("Dokusho"), by Kuroda Seiki (1891)	19
3		The Meiji Print Revolution: Book and Magazine Titles, 
		1881-1926	21
4		The Long Nineteenth Century of the Japanese Novel	25
5		From Santo Kyoden's Gozonji no shobaimono (1782)	88
6		From Tori Sanjin's Takarabune kogane no hobashira (1818), 
		illustration by Katsukawa Shunsen	88
7		The Trade in Chinese Books, 1714-1855	131
8		Domestic Production and Chinese Imports, 1794-1815	131
9		Importing the Novel to Japan	134
10		The Rise of the Novel	149
11		The Meiji Translation Industry:
		The Novels of Industrial Capitalism	150
12		A Dualist Structure: The Literary Field in Meiji Japan	151
Tables
1		The Holdings of the Daiso Lending Library	23
2		The Holdings of Nakaya Shinzaemon's
		Lending Library at Kinosaki	23
3		Defining the Novel I: Early Meiji Dictionaries	32
4		Defining the Novel II: Late Meiji Dictionaries	33
5a		Dispositions I: The Economics of Cultural Consumption,
		circa 1800	92
5b		Dispositions II: The Economics of Cultural Consumption,
		circa 1800	92
6		Matsuzawa Gohei's Book Collection	95
7		The Hayashi Family Library	97
8		The Masterworks of Late Imperial China 	132
9		The Bestsellers of Late Imperial China	133
xiv	Figures and Tables