Tokyo of the Water and Other Writings

A capital can be read from its water. Following the Sumida from its upper reaches to the sea, Kōda Rohan discovers moonlit ferries, industrial canals, flowering embankments, crowded boat passages, and shores where families gather shellfish. His Tokyo is both a living landscape and a network of practical connections.

Four other writings reveal the same attention to things and the lives around them. An essay finds moral importance in how we handle a brush, a cup, or a hat. A historical account distinguishes changing types of chivalrous men. In Tarōbō, a broken sake cup releases a husband’s long-buried recollection of love. A Headlong Journey follows the young writer from Hokkaido to Tokyo, through illness, lost money, blisters, jokes, magnificent scenery, and a painful return to his family.

This complete English collection preserves all five works in the supplied order, including the river survey’s seventy-seven entries, the travel diary’s eight poems, and the fiction’s full dialogue. Notes clarify cultural references and preserve uncertainties in the source.