This portrait provides an account of the life of Ernest Hart (1835-1898), an ophthalmic surgeon, medical journalist, and avid connoisseur of Japanese art.

Inagaki Manjirō combined the desire to embrace Western ideas and Japan's imperial ambitions during the Meiji era. This essay details his life and diplomatic career, providing an overall analysis of both.

Mrs T.H. (Kate) James (1845-1928) and Grace James (1882-1965) contributed significantly to the popularisation of Japanese fairy stories in the English language and to the British understanding of Japanese culture. This essay details their lives and interactions with the fairy tales and folklore of Japan.

This essay provides an account of Japanese tattooists interactions with the British Royal Family during the Meiji period.

This portrait considers how Kikuchi Dairoku's (1855-1917) exposure to England and his education there meant that his own career anticipated the development of Japan at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries.

This essay provides an assessment of Anglo-Japanese relations in the Meiji era through the lens of cross-cultural marriages between Japanese men and British women, and the effect of treaty revision on these marriages.

Although Arthur Morrison (1863-1945) was primarily a writer and novelist, his collection of Japanese art would go on to form one of the core collections of Japanese prints and paintings at the British Museum. This essay details his career as a writer and connoisseur of Japanese art.

This portrait considers the unique and outstanding contribution of businessman Yoshimoto Tadasu (1878-1973) to the welfare of the blind in Japan