This is an autobiographical memoir of Edwin Dun's life in Japan edited by Professor Kimiyuki Nishide. Other versions of the memoir exist including one in the USDA archives and a manuscript in the hands of Dun's descendants. Professor Nishide and Alice Swinger also produced a volume of Dun's letters. Additional letters also exist.
The memoir covers Dun's initial journey to Japan taking cattle to Hokkaido, his residence in Japan, first in Tokyo then in Hokkaido, as an agricultural adviser to the Hokkaido Development Commission (Kaitakushi), then as a diplomat at the USA Legation in Tokyo. Dun became Head of Legation and was involved in negotiations over the Sino-Japanese war (1894-1895). Thereafter Dun involved himself in business, at which he was not very successful, and then became a representative for Standard Oil in Japan. He married twice, to Japanese in both cases, and has descendants living in both Japan and USA.