Konoshiro Tomobei maboroshi sōshi (Ghost Story of Konoshiro Tomobei), printed edition

Dated 1845 and held by the Harvard Art Museums (object 141383), Konoshiro Tomobei maboroshi sōshi (Ghost Story of Konoshiro Tomobei) is a printed edition produced with illustrations by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861), one of the leading designers of late Edo ukiyo-e. Beyond his celebrated work in single-sheet warrior prints, Kuniyoshi was a prolific contributor to the world of Edo illustrated books (ehon and kusazōshi), supplying images for popular fiction, kabuki adaptations, satirical pamphlets, and ghost-story collections. The maboroshi sōshi (phantom or illusion booklet) tradition belongs to the broader genre of kaidan, or ghost-story literature, that surged in popularity through the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, often interleaving sensational supernatural narratives with moralizing or comic asides. Konoshiro Tomobei is the kind of character at the center of such tales: a townsman or low-ranking figure whose entanglement with vengeful spirits or supernatural forces gives the story its dramatic core. Kuniyoshi's gifts as a designer of supernatural and ghostly subjects - already amply displayed in his single-sheet prints of demons, hag spirits, and warrior encounters with the unworldly - made him an ideal collaborator on works of this type. The 1845 dating situates the book within his most active years, when he was producing both Heike- and Suikoden-themed warrior prints and an extensive output of bijin, actor, and comic prints, and helps demonstrate how Edo ukiyo-e extended beyond single sheets into a robust ecosystem of illustrated publishing.