The transcribed and annotated personal letters of Robert H. Pruyn, second U.S. minister to Japan (1862-1865), are now available as an open-source .pdf document on the University at Albany's Scholars Archive at https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/eas_fac_scholar/19/.
Pruyn was a prolific correspondent to his wife, Jane Ann Lansing Pruyn. The letters--600 pages in all--cover the three years that Pruyn spent in Japan while his wife and youngest son remained in Albany. The content covers Pruyn's activites in Japan, the expatriate community in Yokohama and Kanagawa, diplomatic issues, life in Albany, New York state politics, and Pruyn family history. I hope that they will be of interest to a broad community of scholars, both of Japanese and American history.
Questions about the resource may be sent to sfessler@albany.edu.
Susanna Fessler, Professor, State University of New York at Albany
