Donald Keene, hailed in the as "the century's leading expert on Japanese literature," presents here a collection of premodern Japanese diaries that is both a literary history of this genre and a source of insight into Japanese life of the last thousand years. Ranging from objective to confessional, selections such as "The Poetic Memoirs of Lady Daibu" and "Diaries of Seventeenth-Century Courtiers" offer unparalleled glimpses into the lives of diverse writers from the Kamakura dynastic period to the Tokugawa period. Illuminating the hidden and largely unknown worlds of imperial courts, Buddhist monasteries, country inns, and merchants' houses, is an intimate account of the diarists' lives and a testimony to the struggles and advances of Japanese culture.