Jippensha Ikku

Jippensha Ikku (十返舎 一九, 1765 – September 12, 1831) was the pen name of Shigeta Sadakazu (重田 貞一), a Japanese writer active during the late Edo period of Japan.

He mainly wrote sharebon (洒落本), kokkeibon (滑稽本) and over 360 illustrated stories, (gōkan, 合巻 ).

[4] These stories help us see into his writing process, and a little bit into his life, but everything he wrote about himself must be taken with a grain of salt, due to his enjoyment of embellishment and irony.

Being presented with a bathtub in the common interest, he carried it home inverted on his head, and overthrew with ready wit the pedestrians who fell his way.

While his invitation was being accepted he decked himself in the publisher's clothes and paid his New Year's Day calls in proper ceremonial costume.

Although Ikku is often painted to be this charismatic welcoming person, these anecdotes are now widely regarded as apocryphal.

On his deathbed, Jippensha is said to have enjoined his pupils to place upon his corpse, before his cremation, certain packets which he solemnly entrusted to them.

At his funeral, prayers having been said, the pyre was lighted, whereupon it turned out that the packets were full of firecrackers, which exploded merrily.

Ikku was the life of the party, reading his books aloud, and just generally being a really nice person.

The travel boom in Japan that occurred in the early 1800s inspired him to write his famous "fictional guide books" or Hizakurige.

[3] Ikku was not subtle enough, and was put on a fifty-day house arrest for his inappropriate writing, his publishers were also fined heavily and had their woodblocks destroyed.