Abstract
Ihon-dōbō-goen (1720), Shoji-Katsutomi’s historical essay on Yoshiwara, was widely read as excellent material for studying the major red-light district in Edo. It was allegedly revised and retitled Hokujoryo-kigen by a poet named Toryū in the Tenmei Period. My research on the forty-seven variant editions of the essay shows that Toryū had continued his revision work until the second year of the Kyōwa Period. The essay reprinted in the first volume of Chinsho-kankōkai-sōsho is based on the edition possessed by Shikitei-Sanba. His comments on the margins will provide a clue to knowing how it was received in the late Edo Period. But the collection gives few details about its revision process. To make up for its incompleteness I turn to three copied editions with his comments. Samba referred to those comments in writing his “gokan” illustrated books, but he might have no intention of using them for a literary purpose because he just wrote them on the margins as notes.
