Frontmatter -- Contents -- Figures, Maps, and Tables -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Literacy in Early Tokugawa Villages -- 2. Signatures, Ciphers, and Seals -- 3. Rural Culture and the Rise of Provincial Literati in the Eighteenth Century -- 4. The Expansion of Popular Literacy in the Nineteenth Century -- 5. Direct Measures of Popular Literacy in the Nineteenth Century -- Epilogue: Illiteracy in Meiji Japan -- Appendix -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Author