Akutagawa's only collection of stories for children. It contains six
works out of his ten for children in total (two are unfinished.) Akutagawa,
a famous novelist in the Taisho era, killed himself in 1927. This beautifully
bound collection was published posthumously.
Akutagawa called his stories for children traditional tales for children (otogibanashi). As the ones like "Kumo no Ito" ["Thread of a Spider"] and "Toshishun" ["Toshishun - A Man Who Wanted to Be a Legendary Wizard"] have a clear plot and the element of fairy tale, they are like otogibanashi. At the same time, they also show the characteristics of Akutagawa's writing,
as they are based on stories already extant. (Akutagawa often deconstructed
traditional folk tales, his own work, or other people's work. This tendency
can be seen his work for adults, such as "Rashômon" and
"Imo Gayu" ["Potato Porridge"].)
At the end of the "Mittsu no Takara," the last piece in this collection, a prince says as follows: "Everybody! We three are now out of a dream. A black king like a devil or a prince with three pieces of treasure can be found only in fairy stories. As we are awake, we cannot live in a fairy land. . . . Let's get out of here to the wider world." The wider world seems to mean actual life, from which Akutagawa left by his own will.
A reprint of the original edition was published by Holp Shuppan in 1971. |
