was one of the first '' shōjo'' magazines in Japan. It was published by

Hakubunkan is a Japanese publisher, publishing company founded in 1887 amidst the wealth and military prosperity of the Meiji era. Hakubunkan entered the publishing arena by printing a nationalist magazine as well as expanding into printing, advertising, pa ...

beginning in 1906 and was initially edited by renowned children′s author , better known by the pen name .

. Retrieved 16 September 2008. ''Shōjo Sekai'' was created as a sister magazine to , which was also edited by Iwaya, and which began publication in 1895. The magazine's early fiction output tended to be of a didactic nature, with tales about self-sacrifice and the importance of obeying one's parents. The stories then started to focus on passionate bonds between girls, often featuring tones typical of the Class S genre. According to Kiyoko Nagai, for the first ten years of its publication it was the best-selling shōjo magazine of the time, with peak circulations somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 copies per issue.Nagai, Kiyoko () (2000). . In , edited by Nobuko Kohno (), pp. 278-311. Tokyo: Fujiwara Shoten . . The final issue of ''Shōjo Sekai'' was the December 1931 issue.

Contributors

''Shōjo Sekai'' had a number of well known contributors over the years, including the following: * Sazanami Iwaya ( :ja:巌谷小波), author, children's author, editor, publisher *

Yasunari Kawabata was a Japanese novelist and short story writer whose spare, lyrical, subtly shaded prose works won him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal a ...

, novelist and short story author *

Chiyo Kitagawa Chiyo is a feminine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: * Chiyo Aizawa, Japanese murderer of father who sexually abused her since childhood * Chiyo Okumura, Japanese singer * Fukuda Chiyo-ni (Kaga no Chiyo), a Japanese poet ...

(), children's author * Tama Morita, essayist * Midori Osaki ( :ja:尾崎翠), novelist *

Kikuko Oshima Kikuko (written: 喜久子, 伎共子 or 記久子) is a feminine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: *, Japanese singer and voice actress *, Japanese composer *, Japanese writer *, Japanese pianist, music educator and class ...

(), author *

Akiko Yosano Yosano Akiko (Shinjitai: , seiji: ; 7 December 1878 – 29 May 1942) was the pen-name of a Japanese author, poet, pioneering feminist, pacifist, and social reformer, active in the late Meiji era as well as the Taishō and early Shōwa eras of ...

, poet, feminist, pacifist, and social reformer *

Nobuko Yoshiya was a Japanese novelist active in Taishō and Shōwa period Japan. She was one of modern Japan's most commercially successful and prolific writers, specializing in serialized romance novels and adolescent girls' fiction, as well as a pioneer in ...

, author

References

External links

* 1906 establishments in Japan 1931 disestablishments in Japan Children's magazines published in Japan Defunct literary magazines published in Japan Magazines established in 1906 Magazines disestablished in 1931 Magazines published in Tokyo Shōjo manga {{child-mag-stub