1890. After joining the French Navy, Loti (pen name of Julien Marie Viaud) saw the world from shipboard. He spent long months among the palm groves of the South Seas; he visited the scorching coast of Senegal and the seas of Iceland. A prolific writer, Loti used every strange and exotic scene as a background for his romance novels. Madame Chrysantheme is an impressionistic diary of Loti's trip to Japan, his encounter with a famous Japanese girl and their romance. This romantic tale of travel and adventure in Japan is thought to have influenced Puccini's Madam Butterfly. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.