Prince And Princess Chichibu

Synopsis

New insights into the controversial lives of Prince and Princess Chichibu - two high-profile members of the Japanese imperial family. Their lives were lived both above and below ‘the clouds’, with the princess a commoner in an arranged marriage and the popular ‘sporting prince’ dogged by ill health and his association with the Imperial Army.

Library Journal

This personal and subjective memoir by the wife of Prince Chichibu, the younger brother of Emperor Hirohito, rarely gives a close look at life in the court. Setsuko instead chronicles her early life-birth in England in 1909, school in the United States, marriage at 18, lessons in imperial behavior-with some feeling. Later chapters chronicle various official and semiofficial visits. Reverentially, she tells of her husband's battle with tuberculosis, from which he succumbed at age 50. Setsuko lived another 30 years, occupied by visits and her rose garden. Of interest is her regret that World War II strained her relations with English and American friends. An old friend of Setsuko, Britton did the translation at her request. For general readers.-Kitty Chen Dean, Nassau Coll., Garden City, N.Y.