Literature for the Masses

Literature for the Masses is the first English-language book on popular stories known in Japan alternatively as period fiction or mass literature. It highlights the important cultural and ideological work performed by this ubiquitous, yet overlooked, literary form. Focused on the years 1913 to 1941, which coincide exactly with the rise of industrial capitalism and mass culture in Japan, the book challenges the conventional wisdom that period-themed entertainment was an anachronistic holdover fro