Five Women Who Loved Love Author:Ihara Saikaku Review Story collection written by Ihara Saikaku, published in Japanese in 1686 as Koshoku gonin onna, and considered a masterwork of the Tokugawa period (1603-1867). Five Women Who Loved Love is composed of five separate tales, each divided into five individually titled chapters. They consist of vignettes that reveal the sensual and--of equal i... more »nterest--financial activities of members of the leisure class, demimonde, and merchant class. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature Product Description First published in 1686, this collection of five novellas was an immediate bestseller in the bawdy world that was Genroku Japan, and the book's popularity has increased with age, making it today a literary classic like Boccaccio's Decameron, or the works of Rabelais.« less