Abstract

During the Edo period in eighteenth-century Japan, erotic paintings and prints known today as shunga were popular among both men and women. Yet,  prior to Tim Screech’s definitive study, Sex and the Floating World, no one had attempted to situate these overtly sexual images within the contexts of the sexual, gender, or class tensions of the time.

 Newly revised and expanded, this second edition of Sex and the Floating World examines how and why these images were made and used. Along the way, Screech illuminates a provocative world of sexual fantasy in Edo Japan.

‘With concern, proportion, wit and a bit of levity, the author of this authoritative and invaluable contribution to scholarship has given us the book for which we have long waited.”—Japan Times

“Screech provides a fascinating and informative introduction to the social and sexual habits of pre-modern Japan, copiously illustrated and full of witty anecdotes as well as solid scholarly research. The ideal bedtime read?”—Insight Japan

"With concern, proportion, wit and a bit of levity, the author of this authoritative and invaluable contribution to scholarship has given us the book for which we have long waited."--Donald Richie, Japan Times

"Screech provides a fascinating and informative introduction to the social and sexual habits of pre-modern Japan, copiously illustrated and full of witty anecdotes as well as solid scholarly research. The ideal bedtime read?"--Insight Japan

Timon Screechis professor of art history in the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London and senior associate at the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures. His books include The Western Scientific Gaze and Popular Imagery in Later Edo Japan and The Shoguns Painted Culture.