A masterpiece of world literature; the samurai saga of pride, romance, and warfare of medieval Japan With a reflection on the fleeting nature of power and glory begins The Tale of the Heike, an epic from twelfth-century Japan. Comparable in stature to The Tale of Genji, The Tale of the Heike narrates with wit, energy, and compassion the stories of such unforgettable characters as the ruthless warlord Kiyomori, who dies still burning with such rage that water poured on him boils; Hotoke, the beautiful young dancer who renounces wealth and fame to follow her conscience; Shigemori, the tyrant's righteous son, who struggles against all odds to uphold fairness and justice; and Yoshitsune, the daring commander who defeats the enemy in battle after battle, only to be condemned by his jealous, powerful brother. The Tale of the Heike is a foundation stone of Japanese culture and a major masterpiece of world literature. Lavishly illustrated and accompanied by maps, character guides, and genealogies, this book is a volume to treasure.

Written over the course of 1904-6, Soseki's comic masterpiece, I Am a Cat, satirizes the follies of upper-middle-class Japanese society during the Meiji era. With acerbic wit and sardonic perspective, it follows the whimsical adventures of a world-weary stray kitten who comments on the follies and foibles of the people around him. The New Yorker called it "a nonchalant string of anecdotes and wisecracks, told by a fellow who doesn't have a name, and has never caught a mouse, and isn't much good for anything except watching human beings in action..."

Natsume Soseki is best known for his novel "Kokoro," a word which literally means "heart," and has shades of meaning which can be translated as "the heart of things" or "feeling." The work deals with the transition from traditional Japanese society to the modern era, by exploring the friendship between a young man and an older man he calls "Sensei" (or teacher). It continues the theme of isolation developed in Soseki's earlier works. Other important themes in the novel include the changing times, the changing roles and ideals of women, and intergenerational change in values, the role of family, the importance of the self versus the group, the cost of weakness, and identity.

In Osaka in the years immediately before World War II, four aristocratic women try to preserve a way of life that is vanishing. As told by Junichiro Tanizaki, the story of the Makioka sisters forms what is arguably the greatest Japanese novel of the twentieth century, a poignant yet unsparing portrait of a family–and an entire society–sliding into the abyss of modernity. Tsuruko, the eldest sister, clings obstinately to the prestige of her family name even as her husband prepares to move their household to Tokyo, where that name means nothing. Sachiko compromises valiantly to secure the future of her younger sisters. The unmarried Yukiko is a hostage to her family’s exacting standards, while the spirited Taeko rebels by flinging herself into scandalous romantic alliances. Filled with vignettes of upper-class Japanese life and capturing both the decorum and the heartache of its protagonist,The Makioka Sistersis a classic of international literature. From the Hardcover edition.

Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) is one of Japan's foremost stylists – a modernist master whose short stories are marked by highly original imagery, cynicism, beauty and wild humour. Rashomon and In a Bamboo Grove inspired Kurosawa's magnificent film and depict a past in which morality is turned upside down, while tales such as The Nose, O-Gin and Loyalty paint a rich and imaginative picture of a medieval Japan peopled by Shoguns and priests, vagrants and peasants. And in later works such as Death Register, The Life of a Stupid Man and Spinning Gears, Akutagawa drew from his own life to devastating effect, revealing his intense melancholy and terror of madness in exquisitely moving impressionistic stories.