Book Illustration: Tomiyama Tadatsugu from the novel The Gold Demon, 1920

by Yamanaka Kodō

About This Print

One of eight prints, seven of which are woodblock prints, appearing in the 1920 pocket edition (shukusatsu 縮刷), published by Shunyōdō 春葉堂, of the famous novel The Gold Demon (金色夜叉 Konjiki yasha) by the popular novelist and poet Ozaki Kōyō 尾崎紅葉 (1868-1903). The eight prints illustrate characters from the novel and are shown below.

Yamanaka's illustration, shown below with its facing page, is of Tomiyama Tadatsugu 富山唯継, the self-satisfied son of a rich banker whose wealth will cause the "beautiful and charming" Miya to break off her engagement with the poor student Kan'ichi, a ward of her family, making the fateful decision to choose money over love.

Ozaki Kōyō (1868-1903)

Ozaki Kōyō, born in Tokyo, became a novelist at an early age, publishing his first novel Love Confessions of Two Nuns (Ninin bikuni irozange) in 1889. His subsequent novels were all serialized by the newspaper Yomiuri shinbun which Ozaki was the literary editor for. When he died in 1903, his most successful novel The Gold Demon was not yet complete, although already in serialization. The Gold Demon has been described as "[t]he most famous novel at the turn of the century, read by virtually every literate adult..."[1] 

This work was "re-written" and translated into English by A. and M. Lloyd in 1905 and can be found online at: 

https://ia801006.us.archive.org/18/items/golddemon00ozakiala/golddemon00ozakiala.pdf

[1] The World of the Meiji Print: Impressions of a New Civilization, Julia Meech-Pekarik, Weatherhill, 1986, p. 219.

The Eight Prints in the Pocket Edition

Print Details