Bashō (1644-1694)--a great luminary of Asian literature who elevated the haiku to an art form of utter simplicity and intense spiritual beauty--is renowned in the West as the author of Narrow Road to the Interior, a travel diary of linked prose and haiku recounting his journey through the far northern provinces of Japan.

This edition features a masterful translation of this celebrated work. It also includes an insightful introduction by translator Sam Hamill detailing Bashō's life and the art of haiku, three other important works by Bashō--Travelogue of Weather-Beaten Bones, The Knapsack Notebook, and Sarashina Travelogue--and two hundred and fifty of his finest haiku, making this the most complete single-volume collection of Bashō's writings.