This dissertation offers a new perspective on the popular literature of early modern Japan by reconsidering its relationship with other intellectual movements of the period. These include nativist studies and the rapidly expanding inquiries into Dutch, vernacular Chinese, and Russian materials. This shift in focus allows the excavation of significant connections between the period's literature and Japan's early engagement with unfamiliar cultures, thereby challenging the view of Edo fiction as largely absent of new outside influence. Moreover, the approach offers a new way of thinking about the transformation of the period's so-called “playful literature” (gesaku ) from the domain of the intellectual elite into a form of true popular fiction.

The study centers around Morishima Chūryō, an important literary figure of late Edo Japan and early popularizer of Western knowledge who has fallen into relative obscurity. A close reading of Chūryō's writings points to shared content, methodology, and objectives between his literary production and his nonfiction explorations of exotic realms of culture and knowledge only just emerging into broader Japanese consciousness. This resonance manifests itself in his fiction in a concern with the cataloging and categorization of the natural world, material culture, and language; in diligent efforts to scour newly available sources for fresh inspiration; and in his striving for careful linguistic realism in the depiction of domestic subcultures.

Chūryō's fiction is seen as formative in many regards. His adaptations of newly imported Chinese materials constituted a pivotal moment in the shift of the center of gravity of narrative fiction (the yomihon ) from western Japan to Edo, and his expansive worldview enabled him to create a new type of fiction, as he appropriated the formal conventions of Edo courtesan literature (the sharebon), but transformed the genre with his critical ethnographic gaze, careful linguistic inquiries, and a focus on gentle humor over caustic wit and satire. The unfamiliar locales and rural voices he introduced into this dialogue-heavy, polyphonic world strengthened emerging “national” discourses and provided a compelling new template for subsequent writers. In particular, the serialized comic masterpieces of Jippensha Ikku and Shikitei Sanba are shown to owe much to Chūryō's innovations.