The Nightless City: Geisha and Courtesan Life in Old Tokyo

When The Nightless City was first published in 1899, it was deemed taboo in polite circles. It is now considered a valuable historical document—albeit still provocative—as a pioneering sociological study of the Yoshiwara Yukwaku: Tokyo's infamous red-light district where the giving of pleasure became both a tradition and a business. A consequence of old Japan's polygamous family system (where men had multiple wives who bore them many children), the Yoshiwara quarter offered a rough road to ...