Geisha: Women of Japan's Flower & Willow World

This is the most comprehensive assembly of historic geisha images ever compiled in a book. Over 500 exquisite views — drawn from postcards produced primarily between 1900 and 1940 — illustrate the rarified world of Japan's now—extinct licensed pleasure districts. Soon after the West pried open Japan's doors in 1853, stories about Japan began to circulate wildly through Victorian societies. Geisha quickly attained folkloric status as both imagery, widely traveled stage productions, and titil...