Page:A handbook of modern Japan (IA handbookofmodern01clem).pdf/268

204 is frequently to be seen reading a newspaper, magazine, or book.

The leading firm of booksellers in Japan recently asked a large number of eminent Japanese men of letters, of science, of business, etc., to name their favorite European or American books. The 73 answers received have been published in a Japanese periodical, and are interesting as displaying the literary tastes of Japanese readers of foreign literature.

The most popular work is Darwin's "Origin of Species," which received 26 votes; next come Goethe's "Faust," the "Encyclopædia Britannica," and Hugo's "Les Miserables," in the order named. Among English men of letters, Byron and Tennyson are the most popular. The names of Stevenson, Hardy, Meredith, "Mark Twain," and other recent writers are rarely met with, while that of Kipling occurs not even once. Among continental writers, Tolstoi, Schopenhauer, Heine, and Zola are frequently mentioned; and Nietzsche's "Zarathustra" is characterized more than once as the greatest work in the last decade of the nineteenth century.

Some interesting information with reference to the demand for foreign works in Japan has been made public in the "Japan Times" by a Japanese importer of foreign books, and several items therefrom are of interest.

Works relating to architecture and building, chem-*