Transcriber Note: The cover image was createdby the transcriber from the original cover and elements of the title page.It is placed in the public domain.

To
MARY MacCARTHY

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

SEVERAL critics have asked to be told more about the writer of theTale of Genji. Unfortunately little is known of Murasaki’s life savethe bare facts recorded in the first appendix of Volume I. What otherknowledge we possess is derived from her Diary, which will bediscussed in a later volume and is meanwhile available in Mr. Doi’stranslation. Reviewers have also asked for information concerningthe state of literature in Japan at the time when the Tale waswritten. This I have supplied; and I have further ventured upon a shortdiscussion of Murasaki’s art and its relation to the fiction of theWest.

I have been blamed for using Catholic terms to describe heathenrituals. My reason for doing so is that the outward forms of medievalBuddhism stand much nearer to Catholicism than to the paler ceremoniesof the Protestant Church, and if one avoids words with specificallyCatholic associations one finds oneself driven back upon the stillless appropriate terminology of Anglicanism. Thus ‘Vespers’ is a lessmisleading translation than ‘Evening Service’ though the latter is farmore literal.

Finally, I have thought it might be of interest to give a few notesconcerning the transmission of the text.

Volume III is finished and will appear shortly.

Note on Pronunciation.—The G in ‘Genji’ is hard, as in ‘gun.’ Vowels,as in Italian.