In writing Samurai Assassins, Part II: The Rise and Fall of Takéchi Hanpeita and the Tosa Loyalist Party, I referred heavily to the letters Takéchi’s wrote from jail to his wife and sisters, and to his cohorts who had not been imprisoned. The letters to his friends, written in formal language and tone befitting a samurai, provide an insight into Takéchi’s thinking, including his stoic philosophy. The letters to his wife and sisters, on the other hand, overflow with the tender feelings of a husband and brother, and include self-effacing humor, complaints, despondency, and melancholy absent in the other letters—and indeed in his entire persona observed through any other medium. To the best of my knowledge, Takéchi’s letters have rarely, if ever, been used by Western writers.The letters are published in Takéchi Zuizan Kankei Bunsho (武市瑞山関係文書; “Takéchi Zuizan-related Documents”; Zuizan was Takéchi’s pseudonym). The images of the book shown here are from the from The National Diet Library Digital Collection.