Preface Page from an Illustrated Book

The opening preface of one of Kyōden's books, a single page of flowing cursive stamped with a red seal, the facing leaf left blank. A preface set the frame for what followed, often in a deliberately literary or playful voice, and readers of the period expected it as part of the whole. Reproduced by woodblock, even this handwriting became something a printer could multiply and sell. Kyōden made his living inside that machinery, writing, drawing, and designing books that moved in quantity through the shops of Edo. The empty facing page and the wide margins are ordinary features of the form, giving the eye room before the first illustration arrives. What reads as intimate script is a mass-produced page, one step in a commercial book.