This book places Bird's visit to Japan in the context of her worldwide life of travel and gives an introduction to the woman herself. Supported by detailed maps, it also offers a highly illuminating view of Japan and its people in the early years of the 'New Japan' following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, as well as providing a valuable new critique on what is often considered as Bird's most important work. The central focus of the book is a detailed exploration of Bird's journeys and the careful planning that went into them with the support of the British Minister, Sir Harry Parkes, seen as the prime mover, who facilitated her extensive travels through his negotiations with the Japanese authorities. Furthermore, the author dismisses the widely-held notion that Bird ventured into the field on her own, revealing instead the crucial part played by Ito, her young servant-interpreter, without whose constant presence she would have achieved nothing. Written by Japan's leading scholar on Isabella Bird, the book also addresses the vexed question of the hitherto universally-held view that her travels in Japan in 1878 only involved the northern part of Honshu and Hokkaido. This mistaken impression, the author argues, derives from the fact that the abridged editions of Unbeaten Tracks in Japan that appeared after the 1880 two-volume original work entirely omit her visit to the Kansai, which took in Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe and the Ise Shrines. Bird herself tells us that she wrote her book in the form of letters to her sister Henrietta but here the author proposes the intriguing theory that these letters were never actually sent. Many well-known figures, Japanese and foreign, are introduced as having influenced Bird's journey indirectly, and this forms a fascinating sub-text.

Kiyonori Kanasaka, a distinguished geographer at Kyoto University, is widely recognized as Japan’s leading researcher on Bird. He has published extensively in Japanese on the subject, including a full annotated translation of the original two-volume edition of Unbeaten Tracks. He is known worldwide for his ‘Twin Time Travel’ photographic exhibition, shown in many countries – presenting Bird’s descriptions of what she wrote about in her books in juxtaposition with illustrations of the present.

[Plate Section faces page 108]

Foreword by Sir Hugh Cortazzi, GCMG

Author’s Preface to the English Edition

Translator’s Preface

Translator’s Notes

Preface to the Japanese Edition

Maps of Isabella Bird’s Travels in Japan (Figs 1–3)

CHAPTER 1: Interpreting Bird’s Travels and Unbeaten Tracks in Japan

· A scientific study

· The three original works and their Japanese translations

· Bird’s vocabulary and the translation challenge

· The importance of place names

CHAPTER 2: Isabella Bird – A Life of Travel

PART 1: FROM BIRTH TO BIRD’S PERIOD I JOURNEYS: CANADA AND AMERICA

· A clergyman’s daughter

· Bird’s home life and character

· Bird’s Period 1 journeys: Canada and America.

· The second journey to America and her father’s death

· Move to Scotland and her mother’s death

· Bird’s attempts at slum improvement and serious illness

PART 2: BIRD’S PERIOD II AND III JOURNEYS: AUSTRALIA, HAWAIIAN ISLANDS, ROCKY MOUNTAINS, JAPAN

· Start of Bird’s Period II journeys: Australia and New Zealand

· Hawaiian Islands

· Rocky Mountains

· Back home from her Period II journeys

· Background to planning the Japan trip

· Preparing for Japan: Bird’s Period III journeys

PART 3: POST-JAPAN AND EVENTS IN BIRD’S LATER YEARS: JOURNEYS FROM THE LATTER PART OF PERIOD III TO PERIOD VI

· Two journeys on her way home: The Malay and Sinai Peninsulas

· Rapidly-changing personal circumstances

· A visit to Ireland : prelude to Bird’s Period IV journeys

· Bird’s Period IV journeys: Lesser Tibet, Persia and Kurdistan

· Bird as a lecturer and major travel personality

· Bird’s Period V Journeys: three years in a rapidly-changing Far East

· Subsequent activities and trip to Morocco: Bird’s Period VI journeys

· Final years

· A life of travel

CHAPTER 3: Aspects of Bird’s 1878 Visit to Japan

· No regional or time constraints

· Special interior travel permit

· Plant-collecting

· First trip with a servant-interpreter Contents ix

· The route

· Horses and jinrikishas of the Land Transport Agent

· The British Legation

· Missionary agenda

· Bird’s letters

· Press reports

· Planning the journey with Parkes

· Ainu society

CHAPTER 4: Access and Support in Japan

· Minister and Lady Parkes

· The Foreign Ministry

· Accounts by Stoddart and North

· Bird’s letters

· Satow and the three consuls

· Assistance from missionary organisations

· Chamberlain and others

· French and Austrian Legations

· Japanese Foreign Ministry and Hokkaid? Development Commission

· Japanese Home Ministry

CHAPTER 5: The Legacy of Bird’s Stay in Japan

PART I: BIRD AND HER CIRCLE

· On Bird herself

· On Chamberlain

· On Parkes 17

· On It? Tsurukichi

PART 2: WHAT BIRD’S TRIP AND UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN MEAN FOR EUROPE AND AMERICA ISABELLA BIRD AND JAPAN

PART 3: NEW PERSPECTIVES ON THE REVIVED TRAVELOGUES

· Travelogues forgotten and revived

· Understanding Unbeaten Tracks in Japan

· Two illustrations of Mt Fuji and their message

Endnotes

Postscript to the Japanese Edition

Chronology: The Life of Isabella Bird

Bibliographies

Index