A Fake Murasaki and a Rural Genji (Nise Murasaki Inaka Genji)
(Japanese book)
This is a representative work of gōkan, a kind of popular literature with pictures called kusazōshi or ezōshi, which depicts, within the context of the Muromachi period, the world of the "Genji Monogatari (the Tale of Genji)" written by Murasaki Shikibu in the Heian period. The gōkan was developed, as a form of the Edo literature, from akahon (red book), kurohon (black book), aohon (blue book), and kibyōshi (illustrated storybook with a yellow cover) in ascending order according to time, and several volumes (one volume consisting of 5 pages) were unified as one gōkan, which allowed other writers to make up feature-length stories.