Pierre Loti's novel Madame Chrysanth?me (1888) enjoyed great popularity during the author's lifetime, served as a source of Puccini's opera Madama Butterfly, and remains in print to this day as a classic in Western literature. Loti's story, cast in the form of his fictionalized diary, describes the affair between a French naval officer and Chrysanth?me, a temporary "bride" purchased in Nagasaki. More broadly, Loti's novel helped define the terms...