= Extremely rare - we could trace only 3 copies in WorldCat (none in the UK). Good copy with the wrappers worn/ defective at spine-ends.
The tale of the Forty-Seven Ronin, also known as the Forty-Seven Samurai, the Akō vendetta, the Akō Wandering Samurai (赤穂浪士 Akō rōshi), or the Genroku Akō Incident (元禄赤穂事件 Genroku akō jiken), is a prototypical Japanese story. Described by one noted Japan scholar as the country's "national legend" (Izumo), it recounts the most famous case involving the samurai code of honor, Bushido.
The book recreates a very famous incident in 1701 in which Asano Naganori (Lord Asano) was required to commit harakiri. His forty-seven samurai bodyguards, then reduced to the status of ronin, or masterless samurai, took revenge two years later by assassinating Lord Kira Yoshinaka, the individual responsible for Naganori's death. The ronin were then required by the Shogun to commit harakiri and buried with their master. The 17 collotype plates depict key events and settings in the story. Images involving actual characters are reenacted for the photographs.
During the period from 1892 through 1896 Kazumasa Ogawa produced a series of photographic books with collotype plates which have several common characteristics. Individually, each of the books represent the work of a master photographer executing the results of his labor through a then state of the art high quality printing process. Considered as a series, these books form an amazing pictorial mosaic of Japanese life, customs, cultural treasures and scenic places, recorded as Japan emerged from relative isolation to the outside world and entered into the 20th century. (Source: G.C. Baxley).