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The first Western commercial fiction was translated into Japanese in 1879

[UPDATED: 2-19-2018]
It took 32 years, from the first publication of a work of Japanese fiction in a European language until an important Western work of fiction was published in Japanese translation, in 1879. 

The first “important” title, according to the scholar Donald Keane was the novel Ernest Maltravers (1837) by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873), the bestselling British author who is famous for having coined phrases such as; “the great unwashed,” “it was a dark and stormy night” and “the pen is mightier than the sword”. 

The novel, translated by Junichiro Niwa, a former Edinburgh University law student, was published in Japanese under the title Karyū shunwa (A Spring Tale of Blossoms and Willows), and sold extremely well. A Japanese translation of a Jules Verne novel, by Chunosuke Kawashima was also published that year in Japan.
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The first Western commercial fiction was translated into Japanese in 1879 Posted by Richard Nathan