The opening up of Japan and Japanese trade with the west in the late-nineteenth century sparked a huge interest in Japanese culture back in Europe. Though Japanese goods, and imitations of Japanese wares, had been arriving in Europe from the seventeenth century, the opening of Japanese ports meant that these objects were now available to a wider portion of society. Artists and designers began to look at Japan for inspiration, and a fashion for all things Japanese emerged.

This book is a product of that period. It is a translation of the tale of the forty-seven Ronin, a historical event that became legendary, and one of the most popular stories in Japanese literature, with performances in bunraki and kabuki theatres from as early as 1748.

The story is based on the true events of the Ako Incident of 1703, when a group of forty-seven ronin (leaderless samurai) avenged the death of their master before committing seppuku, a form of ritual suicide.

The book contains wood-block ukiyo-e style prints on Japanese paper which are rather jarring to the neo-gothic Victorian initials and decorations of the text itself.