Five Women Who Loved Love: Amorous Tales from 17th-century Japan
Story collection written by Ihara Saikaku, published in Japanese in 1686 as Koshoku gonin onna, and considered a masterwork of the Tokugawa period (1603-1867).  Five Women Who Loved Love is composed of five separate tales, each divided into five individually titled chapters. They consist of vignettes that reveal the sensual and--of equal interest--financial activities of members of the leisure class, demimonde, and merchant class.   --The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature