This French edition of the first volume in the "Les Contes du Vieux Japon" ("Japanese Fairy Tale Series") series, Momotaro, was published around Meiji 19 (1886). While the colophon at the start of the book gives us this year of publication, Hasegawa books are notoriously difficult to accurately date because of their re-use of printing blocks, meaning that books re-printed years after their first release would still bear the first edition date. Many scholars and book dealers now use the Hasegawa address in Japanese on the colophon to give an approximate date of publication, as, lucky for us, Hasegawa moved house a lot, and made sure to at least update his contact information in the books he reprinted.

The woodblocks for printing illustrations were often re-used in different language editions of Hasegawa books, only the text itself being replaced (with movable type, in the case of this book). This is why, with the exception of the text and occasionally the "wrappers" (or "covers") and advertisements, editions such as this are almost identical to their English counterparts.

Joseph Dautremer is given as the translator of this book in the French on the title page, but Félix Evrard is given as the translator in the Japanese on the same page. Both Dautremer and Evrard were translators for the French legation in Japan.

For more information on Hasegawa books, please see this link and Dave's YouTube video below.

Some Hasegawa publications were featured in one of the 'David's Choice' YouTube videos in August of 2019.