Although he wrote only three novels during his career and spent most of his life in government service, Futabatei Shimei (the pen name for Hasegawa Tatsunosuke) is credited with having written the first modern Japanese novel. His knowledge of Russian literature, combined with his facility for language and his insistence on a new colloquial style for the fiction of a new age, helped him write a novel that inspired an entire generation of authors. The indecisive, ineffectual protagonist he created became a prototype for Japanese antiheroes throughout the twentieth century.

As the only child of Hasegawa Yoshikazu, a samurai from Owari, and his wife, Got Shizu, Hasegawa Tatsunosuke was born at the Ichigaya mansion in Edo, the capital city and present-day Tokyo. His grandmother, Mitsu, who wielded the actual power in the family and dominated Yoshikazu, adopted the child, raised him, and showered love on him. In an...