Sponsored by the University of Virginia and the University of Pittsburgh East Asian Library, the online collection contains over 300 texts from Japan's pre-modern and modern periods (generally defined as before and after the Meiji Restoration of 1868).
Pre-modern texts include the Man'yōshū, the Tale of Genji, the Kokin Wakashū, and the Hōjōki.
Modern texts include works by Natsume Sōseki, Mori Ōgai, and Akutagawa Ryūnosuke.
The stated aim of the initiative is "In the short term... to put online most or all of the Twenty Classical Works in J. Thomas Rimer's A Reader's Guide to Japanese Literature, revised edition (New York: Kodansha, 1999)"[1].
There are relatively few Edo-period pieces, and some Meiji and Taishō period authors are either absent, or not all of their works are available.