Museums and art-dealers bought what they could. From the middle of the nineteenth century on, every major international exhibition in Europe and America had a huge Japanese presence: paintings silks pottery books music. The country, which had been virtually sealed off from the rest of the world for centuries, was slowly opening up: treaties were signed international trade and diplomatic relations were established missionaries flocked to convert these exotic creatures to some form of Christianity. To the nineteenth-century Westerner, Japan – indeed all things Japanese – was a source of endless fascination. His first published story was Miss Cherry Blossom of Tokyo and many of his subsequent tales, including, of course, Madame Butterfly, were also situated in Japan. In 1881 John Luther Long was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar when he wasn’t lawyering in Philadelphia he wrote stories and plays. The Making of Madame Butterfly – Part One.
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