Translated, with an Introduction and Notes, by William H. and Helen Craig McCullough.

This is the first translation into a Western language of Eiga monogatari, an eleventh-century chronicle of Japanese aristocratic life from about the middle of the tenth century to the death of the famous Fujiwara Regent Michinaga in 1028. Eiga monogatari is one of the most important sources available to social historians of the period, complementing the fictional portrait of the society depicted in The Tale of Genji.

The wealth of information on the life of the Heian Imperial Court and its nobility—personal relationships, court intrigues, palace ceremony, entertainments—is supplemented by abundant annotation that allows the whole to serve as a comprehensive encyclopedia of Heian aristocratic culture. The Introduction discusses Eiga's origins and assesses its historiographical significance; and appendixes describe the imperial office system and palace structure. The work is illustrated with 19 woodcuts from a seventeenth-century printed version of the work, and has 20 diagrams, including plans of the capital and the Imperial Palace and several genealogical charts.