The Enmeiin Affair of 1803: The Spread of Information in The Tokugawa Period

Abstract

IT IS a commonplace in the cultural history of Japan that the commercial publisher came into his own in the Tokugawa period and made as if to replace the manuscript with the printed book. But notwithstanding the spread of the printed word, manuscript traditions survived and throughout the Tokugawa period a large number of works circulated only in the form of shahon X, (manuscript books). Some were simply manuscript copies of printed works, and others recorded the minutiae of tea ceremony practices and similar esoteric traditions. There was also a considerable body of works dealing with matters too indiscreet to be published and these are variously referred to as jitsuroku(mono) _t or jitsuroku-tai shosetsu A JJ<N. Their basis was generally in the facts of contemporary scandal and other notable events, as the terms imply, and to this element their usually anonymous authors were commonly disposed to add a good measure of fiction. In view of the censorship legislation in force for much of the Tokugawa period, it was futile to think of