Makura no Soshi Shunshosho (枕草子春曙抄)
"Makura no Soshi Shunshosho" is a commentary on Makura no Soshi (The Pillow Book) written in the Edo period. Also known simply as "Shunshosho," it was written by Kigin KITAMURA (1624 - 1705), who was famous as a classical scholar early during the Edo period. The original manuscript is noin-bon (a type of transcription). The precise date of its publication is unclear due to the lack of a publication record. However, due to the fact that the classical Chinese epilogue includes a reference to the year 1674, it is thought to have been published after this time. There are twelve volumes. Each of the printed copies published in 1729 comprises one volume of the full text, and another book by Yoshitomo TSUBOI entitled "Makura no Soshi Shozoku Satsuyosho" ('Shozokusho') is bound to the final volume to make a total of 13 double-leaved books. In addition, there are six books unrelated to "Shozokusho."
The book has an epilogue written by Kigin KITAMURA on August 18, 1674 which begins 'Sei Shonagon, the author of Makura no Soshi, was a genius of Heian literature and the Japanese language. She was greatly admired by Murasaki Shikibu, author of Genji Monogatari.'
The book contains detailed marginal notes, commentaries, collations and historical artefacts regarding the noin-bon "Makura no Soshi." As the pinnacle of commentary on "Makura no Soshi" in the early modern period, it not only overwhelmed Bansai KATO's (1625 - 1674) "Seishonagon Makura no Soshi Sho," another commentary on "The Pillow Book" which was published the same year, but it was also widely circulated in multiple editions until the Meiji period (it is said that pirated editions were already commonplace circa the Genroku era (1688 - 1703).