Tales of the Samurai: Stories Illustrating Bushido, the Moral Principles of the Japanese Knighthood: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Tales of the Samurai: Stories Illustrating Bushido, the Moral Principles of the Japanese Knighthood, credited to Asataro Miyamori, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of Tales of the Samurai: Stories Illustrating Bushido, the Moral Principles of the Japanese Knighthood by Asataro Miyamori. Read in English by tombooker. The following tales of the samurai, the knights of old Japan, are based largely on real facts. They have been adapted from among traditional stories related by kōdanshi, story-tellers, who nightly delight large audiences with romances and historical stories, especially the noble deeds of the samurai. There are also numerous Japanese books and magazines devoted to stories of this description, which are read with keen interest by all classes of our countrymen, in particular by young people. It is true the samurai class has gone forever along with feudalism; but fortunately or unfortunately the Japanese at large are samurai in a sense. During the last half century European civilization has revolutionized Japanese society, both for better and for worse. In institutions political and social, in manners and customs, in arts and literature, the Japanese have lost many of their characteristics; yet it may safely be said that the sentiments, motives and moral principles of the samurai in some measure remain in the bedrock of their character in their subconsciousness, so to speak. The Japanese of to-day are intellectually almost cosmopolitans, but emotionally they are still samurai to no small degree. -- From the author's preface.

Recording facts

• Recording title: Tales of the Samurai: Stories Illustrating Bushido, the Moral Principles of the Japanese Knighthood
• Author credits: Asataro Miyamori
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 19
• Listed recording duration: 5:45:34

Catalogue topics

• Samurai
• Bushido
• japanese fiction
• samurai -- fiction
• bushido -- fiction
• japan -- fiction

Track guide

1. 01 - Preface — 3:02
2. 02 - Ungo-Zenji — 31:36
3. 03 - The Loyalty of a Boy Samurai — 15:41
4. 04 - Katsuno's Revenge: Part I — 7:59
5. 05 - Katsuno's Revenge: Part II — 11:59
6. 06 - Katsuno's Revenge: Part III — 11:23
7. 07 - Katsuno's Revenge: Part IV — 6:15
8. 08 - Katsuno's Revenge: Part V — 4:44
9. 09 - Katsuno's Revenge: Part VI — 11:06
10. 10 - Katsuno's Revenge: Part VII — 8:46
11. 11 - Katsuno's Revenge: Part VIII — 8:47
12. 12 - Katsuno's Revenge: Part IX — 5:40
13. 13 - A Wedding Present — 45:41
14. 14 - The Heroism of Torii Katsutaka — 37:52
15. 15 - The Wrestling of a Daimio — 34:06
16. 16 - The Story of Kimura Shigenari: Part I — 24:41
17. 17 - The Story of Kimura Shigenari: Part II — 14:33
18. 18 - The Story of Kimura Shigenari: Part III — 17:01
19. 19 - Honest Kyusuke — 44:42

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.