This little book is designed to help the reader come to grips with a work that, despite its undoubted importance, remains the product of an alien culture; and because its setting is so alien, certain matters that in a different context might normally be considered general knowledge must be covered here in some detail. The first chapter therefore is devoted to a series of cultural generalities.

The Tale of Genji is a long work. So long is it, in fact, that in the second chapter I have felt it necessary to provide lengthy summaries, which may strike the reader as patronising but should nevertheless prove useful: rare is the reader who does not find him or herself losing the thread at times. The body of the Genji has thus been notionally divided into five sections; such a scheme should not be seen as constituting any special challenge to the more usual Japanese habit of seeing the work divided into three parts, breaking at chapters 33 and 42: it is more a matter of convenience. Each section gives an outline of the plot and a treatment of the major points which emerge. There follows a chapter on language and style, which is of necessity somewhat technical in that it introduces a number of important features that tend to be lost in the process of translation. The last chapter discusses the impact and reception of the Genji through nine centuries of cultural change.