This large (245 x 297 mm), beautifully produced book calls itself "an introduction to the world of kabuki with retellings of famous plays, illustrated by woodblock prints."
And so it is. Most of the pages are devoted to retellings of 37 popular kabuki plays, giving details on the origin and characteristics as well as notes and anecdotes. All are illustrated by woodblock prints of major scenes of the plays or portraits of the actors.
The descriptions of the plays are, say the authors, "neither translated nor summarized . . . the stories are retold in our own words." They are thus somewhat like, say, "Tales from Shakespeare," the popular 1807 collaboration by Charles and Mary Lamb that informed the young without submitting them to the rigors of the dramas themselves.
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