Aimé Humbert (1819-1900) was born in a small village in the canton of Neuchatel in Switzerland. Financial hardship forced him to leave university without graduating. Later he played an important part in the rebellion against the king of Prussia, which led to the incorporation of his native canton into the Swiss confederacy in 1857. In the spring of 1863 Humbert arrived in Nagasaki at the head of a deputation of five representatives of the Swiss watch-making industry and others interested in opening trade with Japan.
　　Humbert and his companions stayed in Japan for some ten months, during which time he made copious notes on diverse aspects of Japanese customs, history and religion. These notes form the base of the present work, and witness how the author strove to interpret an alien culture in a purely personal manner. They first appeared in serial form in the magazine Le tour du monde, subsequently appearing from the press of Hachette in Paris in the year 1870.