The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-04-30
THE NEW PUBLICATIONS.
SoME OF THE LATEST BOOKS OF,
 THE SEASON

LHE oEAoOls
 @yami-Ko." Story of Japanese Life
 .sThe Villa cIaudia," by J. A. Mitchell
 -The EGendi, by Florence Brooks
 Whitehouse-TomfooI by James
 M Flagg-Fortheomfn Hooks
 Magazines.
 ''Nami-Ko. a very realistic. beauti- ful and pathetic story of Japanese life comes to us from Herbert B. Turner & Co. Boston. It is an English transla- tion of a novel by Kenjiro Tokutomi, one of the foremost of Japanese novel ists. The book bounded at once into immense popularity in Japan. First published in 1900, in three years 1t reached a sale of one hundred thousand copies, something unprecedented in the history of Japanese book-selling. It ap- pealed especially to the Japanese mind because it accurately set forth in the guise of fiction their rapidly changing moral. religious and social opinions. It was, moreover, as it is believed, based upon actual events in the lives of cer- tain well known Japanese people. The title of the original is Hototogiso, but Nami-Ko was adopted at the suggestion of the author, who has written a pre- face for the American edition. It is still selling largely in Japan, enjoying con- tinued popularity and bids fair to be a permanent contribution to Japanese lit- erature. Though Japanese in treatment and subject, the story appeals at once to the English-speaking reader, and 1t is literary treasure from the charming insight it gives into the dainty and delicate ways of Japanese daily life and the national love of nature. It is Q novel which has purpose and that IS to bring into the full light the need or reform in that phase of the marriage and divorce customs of Japan which permits mother to divorce her son s wife without his knowledge or. consent, and regardless of the pain and anguish to husband and wife that such a course may bring. The author writes with deep sense of the injustice which may be and is often wrought in this way by the exercise by the mother of the power permitted her in this divorce matter; yet the author, never for a moment for- gets the novelist in the reformer. The story is delightful in it's simplicity, con- vincing and powerful. Also at this mo- mlent. when the eyes of the world are upon Japan, the book has additional m terest from the interesting and pictur- esque descriptions it gives in several charters of battles in the naval conflict of '98 between Japan and China. The hero of the story, who loves his charm ing and highly lovable wife Nami- ko, is a naval officer and it was during his absence at sea that his darling, the ap- ole of his eye, was divorced rom hIm bv the sons ambitious and heartless mother. It is of New Haven interest, moreover. to know that Sakae Shioya, one of the translators of this very ir- teresting story is here at Yale. Sakae shioya was born in a little Japanese town fifty miles from Tokyo in 1871. At the. age of twelve he began the study of English at Methodist school and in 1859 he entered the First Imperial college at Tokyo, where he began the study of natural science. For time he taught English and mathematics to his fellow -eountrymen, and in 1901 he came to America. Entering the University of Chicago, he received the degree of mas ter of arts two years later, and he is now at Yale making a special study of the English drama.
 Nami-Ko is a work of 330 pages bound in decorative cloth price $1.50; for sale at all bookstores.
 Kenjiro Tokutomi, the author of Ma mi-Ko, was born in Hijo, Kinshu, in 1868, and was educated at Doshisha col lege. When his brother, Iiehiro Toku- tonni, one of Japans most eminent es- sayists, started the literary society known as Min-yu-sha in 1888, he at once joined it, and during a period of four teen years was intimately associated with all it's plans and accomplishments. He has written life of John Bright, Richard Golden, William E. Gladstone, Tolstoi and other foreign literary men and statesmen. Narni-Ko was his first novel, and it has since been followed by several others Although well known by reputation in Japan, MT. Tokutomi is Of a retiring disposition, and is sell dom seen in public.