ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief outline of the cultural, legal, and technological developments that occurred in contemporary Japanese publishing. Anticipating the works of other Japanese scholars, Ozaki indicated that the Tatsukawa bunko was at the vanguard of print commercialisation in Japan; it was, he stated, the ‘soil in which the popular print culture of the Taisho era took root’. Japanese critics often describe the works as ‘transitional’ or even ‘seminal’ literature. Non-Japanese scholars correspondingly locate stenographical books as a starting point for contemporary forms of mass-produced historical fiction in Japan. Social upheaval during the 1850s and 1860s profoundly altered Japanese cultural attitudes towards information. The Meiji Restoration saw the imperial household (re)gain control of political power in Japan. The attitudes of the Emperor Meiji, his leaders, and the intellectuals of this new Japanese nation state towards the West had a profound impact on those working in publishing.
