So I was reading Jorge Luis Borges when, upon scanning the footnote, it metioned that Borges got his version of the 47 Ronin (Japan’s most bad-ass true story over the last 400 years) from Mitford’s Tales of Old Japan. Now, as little as 5 years ago, the sources quoted from any footnote you read would most likely be inaccessible to you: they’d either be out of print or just available to the library of the township where the author resides. But now, in the age of gutenberg.org, a lot of books from more than a century ago are available online without copyright restriction (check out the entire Sherlock Holmes collection for free before the movie arrives here in a few weeks!)
So I visited the site, and behold! Mitford is available online, and you can now read Borges’s source story they way he read it. I’m now reading Mitford talk repeatedly about Yedo, and I just realized he’s referring to Edo, the modern-day Tokyo.
I think I will revisit a few of my favorite books and check the footnote section…
Hello sir! The link is not working anymore. >_<
fixed.