Within My Glass Doors

During his last years (1915–1916) Natsume Sōseki was often troubled by the stomach ailment that eventually took his life at age 49. Constrained by his illness to remain at his home in Waseda, a Tokyo suburb, he nevertheless continued to work on his novels and to write columns for publication in the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. Within My Glass Doors collects those 39 columns; in them he discusses his visitors, his illness, memories of his childhood and family, and interactions with colleagues new and old. The most autobiographical and revealing of all his writings, this collection of essays displays his remarkable insights into his own moods and mental states, as well as his unfailing humor and unique self-analysis and deprecation. This translation of Garasudo-no-naka / 硝子戸の中 (1915) was made by Iwao Matsuhara and Edwin T. Iglehart and originally published in 1928.