The Pillow Book

The Pillow Book is a collection of essays, anecdotes, lists and poems compiled by Sei Shonagon, a court lady who served Empress Consort Fujiwara no Teishi during Japan's Heian period, completed around 1002 under the Japanese title Makura no Soshi. Written in hiragana, the syllabary customarily used by women of the era rather than the Chinese characters favored for formal writing by men, the work records Shonagon's observations, opinions and daily impressions from court life with little connective narrative beyond her own recurring wit and taste, later classified as an early example of the zuihitsu, or assorted writing, genre. According to a note appended to the text, the manuscript was originally intended as a private record but was carried off by a visiting guest who found it left out on a cushion, after which it circulated and became one of the most influential and closely studied works of classical Japanese literature, with major English translations by Arthur Waley, Ivan Morris and Meredith McKinney.