Twenty-eight entertaining tales from Japanese folklore are featured here, and everything comes with a magical twist. Monkeys, badgers and other meddlesome creatures abound, as well as fortune tellers, malevolent spirits and mysterious paintings.

A man who ardently desires eternal life is taught a lesson. A couple fall in love and find each other across the centuries. More unexpected time-slips happen in ‘Urashima Taro’, where a young fisherman ends up married to a princess and lives undersea for centuries. Spirits are all around us: in ‘The Laughing Dumpling’, an elderly woman outwits a demon with a taste for her cooking. Ghostly hauntings are visited on those who have done wrong, and famous tales like ‘The Marvellous Tea Kettle’ and ‘The Bamboo Cutter and the Moon Child’ (which inspired Studio Ghibli’s Princess Kaguya) remind us that the boundary between the magical and the everyday is only too fragile.

Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library, a series of stunning pocket-sized classics. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover.