Tales of Old Japan - Maybe You Like It

About Lord Redesdale:
Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale GCVO, KCB
(24 February 1837 - 17 August 1916), of Batsford Park, Gloucestershire,
and Birdhope Craig, Northumberland, was a British diplomat, collector
and writer. Nicknamed "Barty", he was the paternal grandfather of the
Mitford sisters. He entered the Foreign Office in 1858, and was appointed
Third Secretary of the British Embassy in St Petersburg. After service
in the Diplomatic Corps in Peking, Mitford went to Japan as second secretary
to the British Legation. There he met Ernest Satow and wrote Tales
of Old Japan (1871) - a book credited with making such classical Japanese
tales as that of the Forty-seven Ronin first known to a wide Western public.
He resigned in 1873. In 1906 he accompanied Prince Arthur on a visit
to Japan to present the emperor with the Order of the Garter, and was
asked about Japanese ceremonies that had since disappeared. From 1874
to 1886 Mitford acted as secretary to HM Office of Works, involved in
the restoration of the Tower of London and landscaping parts of Hyde
Park such as 'The Dell'. From 1887 he was a member of the Royal Commission
on Civil Services. He also sat as Member of Parliament for
Stratford-on-Avon between 1892 and 1895. In 1886 Mitford inherited the
substantial estates of his first cousin twice removed, John Freeman-Mitford,
1st Earl of Redesdale. In accordance with the will he assumed by
Royal license the additional surname of Freeman. He substantially rebuilt
Batsford House in Gloucestershire in the Victorian Gothic style. In
1902 the Redesdale title was revived when he was raised to the peerage
as Baron Redesdale, of Redesdale in the County of Northumberland. In
his closing years Lord Redesdale translated into English, edited, and
wrote extensive effusive Introductions of two of Houston Stewart
Chamberlain's books: Foundations of the Nineteenth Century and Immanuel
Kant - A Study and Comparison with Goethe, Leonardo da
Vinci, Bruno, Plato, and Descartes, published by John Lane at the Bodley
Head, London, in 1910 and 1914.
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