The Invention of a New Religion

Basil Hall Chamberlain

Basil Hall Chamberlain was a British academic and Japanologist. He was a professor of the Japanese language at Tokyo Imperial University and one of the foremost British Japanologists active in Japan during the late 19th century. He also wrote some of the earliest translations of haiku into English. He is perhaps best remembered for his informal and popular one-volume encyclopedia Things Japanese, which first appeared in 1890 and which he revised several times thereafter. His interests were diverse, and his works include an anthology of poetry in French.