Hasegawa Takejirō's 20-volume series of Japanese Fairy Tales in other languages (including English, French, German and Spanish) were initially conceived with the intention of helping Japanese people learn foreign languages. He soon found though, that there was much more interest from the other side - the rest of the world was keenly interested in Japanese culture at that time (during the Meiji period) - so he turned his attentions to distributing the books overseas and to tourists in Japan. During the period from the late 1880s up through the 1930s he issued many hundreds of books, calendars, and individual prints, and they are all presented with a wonderful originality and excellent taste. The books published before 1890 were illustrated by ukiyo-e artist Kobayashi Eitaku.

Creped books like the ones in this group were the mainstay of his business, and indeed made his company famous in its day. The text in these books was printed on presses in the western fashion, but the illustrations were done with traditional woodblock methods. After each sheet was printed it was repeatedly 'crimped' in a special device to produce the crepe effect and everything was then bound together. The resulting books have an indescribable charm - a delicate colouring and attractive balance between text and image, and the effect is greatly enhanced by the creping.