Colored Illustrations

Here are Nara ehon with beautifully colored illustrations.

The 100th Anniversary Exhibition of Kyoto University Library held in 1999 featured about 90 items of fairy tale books called Otogi zoshi, including Nara ehon with beautifully colored illustrations. Otogi zoshi is a group of fairy tales composed during the period from the Muromachi Era to the beginning of the Edo Period. It is said that there exist more than 400 kinds of them. Kyoto University holds 136 items of 90 titles in the main library and other department libraries.
ref.) '京都大学所蔵お伽草子目録（解題付）' in "お伽草子 -物語の玉手箱- 京都大学附属図書館創立百周年記念公開展示会" (Exhibition Catalog 1999)

Enjoying Otogi Zoshi with the Help of Synopsis and Illustrations

Otogi Zoshi are tales for adults and children enjoy alike. In the Muromachi Period and the Edo Period, people would have great fun thumbing through the pages by themselves or have someone read to them - there were many ways to enjoy the stories. The greatest pleasure of all though, must surely have been the beautiful painted color illustrations.
Many of these flamboyantly illustrated Otogi Zoshi tales are in the possession of the Kyoto University Library. So that you can taste the same enjoyment as people of the olden days, we have added the beautiful illustrations to the each synopsis of the tale and made it like a picture book. The synopsis is for people who have trouble with Japanese classics, who cannot work out what has been written but who want to know the story, so ease of understanding was our biggest goal. The expression is not rigorously modern, but in order to convey the atmosphere of the story we were a little creative. We will be happy if you enjoy it as a picture book.