The Earth Is Bountiful

A girl’s imagination once held a kingdom of nymphs, jeweled streams, singing trees, and a maiden whose lyre was strung by seven blue spiders. As that kingdom fades, the adult world comes into view, and the promise of becoming “a fine person” gives way to questions that ordinary advice cannot answer.

In The Earth Is Bountiful, Miyamoto Yuriko follows a young mind through disappointment, renewed hope at school, rebellion against hypocrisy, and the consolations of solitude and nature. An unsent letter contains an unsettling tale of a king who makes his people resemble himself. Later, the girl’s desire to help the unfortunate confronts the limits of sympathy untempered by understanding.

This complete six-section narrative preserves the movement between remembered fantasy, notebooks, letters, moral inquiry, and spiritual reflection. Twenty-two notes clarify classical references, literary quotations, historical vocabulary, and textual difficulties. First published in 1918, it offers an early exploration of how feeling, reason, and love might become the foundations of an independent life.