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Ihara Saikaku (1642-93), bom Hirayama Togo in Osaka, was originally a successful merchant, but the tragedy of losing his wife and blind daughter moved him to forgo business and to travel and write. He began his literary career as a haiku poet, astonishing contemporaries with his skill at composing thousands of stanzas in a single sitting. Later he turned to writing ukiyozoshi, a popular prose form in which he enchanted readers with racy accounts of the amorous and financial affairs of the merchant class and the demimonde. In addition to This Scheming World, his masterpieces include The Life of an Amorous Man, Five Women ‘Who Loved Love, and The Life of an Amorous Woman.

Masanori Takatsuka, a graduate of Hiroshima Koshi, and David C. Stubbs, a graduate of Florida State University, were both faculty members of Kwansei Gakuin University in Japan at the time they translated This Scheming World.