Shogun (novel)
Shōgun is the first novel in James Clavell's Asian Saga. It is set in feudal Japan somewhere around the year 1600 and gives a highly fictionalized account of the rise of Tokugawa Ieyasu to the Shogunate, seen through the eyes of an English sailor.
Warning: Plot details follow.
In the novel, the lead character is John Blackthorne, pilot and acting captain of the Dutch trading ship Erasmus which is one of the first of the foreign ships to reach the Japans. Despite an inhospitable welcome to the island, Blackthorne slowly gains an understanding of the people and their culture, and eventually learns to deeply respect it. The native Japanese people also grow to respect the strange 'barbarian' and he is eventually granted the unique status of Samurai.
The novel has been adapted as a movie, a television mini-series, and an Infocom computer game.
Key to characters
These characters in Shogun are based on historical figures:See also