Shikibu, Murasaki ___ 973g-1025g ___ Japanese ___ n/a

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Few details of Shikibu's life are known, even her birth and death dates are uncertain. Shikibu's father was the governor of a province and a well known scholar. He let Shikibu learn Chinese classics, although girls were not usually allowed this privilege at the time. She married and had a daughter, but, when her husband died, in 1001, she entered court. For two years, while at court, she wrote a diary, which is considered historically important. She is more famous, however, for her novel, 'The Tale of Genji', which is considered one of the first ever written. Some argue that Shikibu is the world's first modern novelist.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1007-1010 ___ religious family domestic royalty

WEB TEXT LINKS
etext
about and a couple of extracts

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
 

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
Diary of Lady Murasaki
Court Ladies of Old Japan
 

May 2005, August 2008
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.