The three war tales translated in this book tell the story of the crucial decades surrounding the events chronicled in The Tale of the Heike, vividly recording stages in the passage from rule by the imperial court in Kyoto to rule by the warrior government in Kamakura.

Royall Tyler is the award-winning translator of The Tale of the Heike and The Tale of Genji. His Columbia University Press books include The Miracles of the Kasuga Deity (2016) and Joy, Despair, Illusion, Dreams: Twenty Plays from the Nō Tradition (2024). After teaching at Ohio State University, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and the University of Oslo, Tyler retired from the Australian National University.

Andrew Edmund Goble, University of Oregon:
We owe a debt of gratitude to Royall Tyler for bringing together in one accessible place three works crucial for understanding the genesis of the cultural and historical memories pertaining to the transformational rise to political power of the Eastern warrior class from the late twelfth century. Tyler makes use of the advances of scholarship and textual study of the past several decades and provides helpful reference matter (the maps are most welcome). His elegant translations bring the warrior worlds alive.

Thomas D. Conlan, Princeton University:
Indispensable. The world of twelfth- and thirteenth-century warriors comes alive in Royall Tyler’s powerful work, which showcases dramatic battles and illuminates a rich cast of characters, ranging from wily emperors and powerful generals to fleeing widows and defeated young men. Tyler’s translation, the first in English of the oldest versions of these three tales, reveals a refreshingly balanced portrait of some, such as the oft-maligned Taira Kiyomori. This volume is essential for understanding how Japan became destabilized by its aggressive sovereigns and how their untrammeled power was checked by the 1221 victory of Kamakura, Japan’s new warrior government.

Daniel Botsman, Yale University:
Royall Tyler’s exquisite renderings of these three essential texts of Japan’s medieval past not only offer English-language readers a compelling introduction to the struggles that ushered in the age of the samurai: they also help explain the enduring power and fascination of this tumultuous period of history for the centuries of people who lived in its wake. Bridging the gap between our world and that of medieval Japan with an ease that comes only with the deepest of erudition, Tyler’s mastery of both prose and poetry allows us to feel the pathos (and contemporary resonances) of a time, when, as the oracle predicted, human folly and ambition led the world to turn over “like the palm of a hand.” Replete with helpful maps, notes and glossaries, the volume is ideal for classroom use and a perfect companion to Tyler’s magnificent, The Tale of the Heike.

Elizabeth Oyler, coeditor of Cultural Imprints: War and Memory in the Samurai Age:
Tyler is the most eminent translator of premodern Japanese literature, and his translations render all three tales vividly and with his trademark accuracy. This volume is an important contribution for scholars and teachers of Japanese literature, culture, and history.