Muraoka Hanako was born in 1893 in Yamagata, where her father was a book-loving tea-leaf merchant; her maiden name was Annaka, a minor case of nominative determination. Her parents were Christians, and she was baptized at the age of two by a Canadian minister (a Methodist; Miss Cornelia would be horrified). The family moved to Tokyo when she was five. Although there were eight children, only the bright Hanako was given advanced schooling; five of her younger sisters and brothers were adopted out or sent into apprenticeship.

From elementary school on she amused herself writing poetry; after graduation she was sent to the Toyo Eiwa Girls’ School, where she lived in the dormitory and studied English, history, and etiquette among other things, mostly from textbooks published in Canada. She also became devoted to the classics of English children’s literature in the school library, which she read with the aid of a dictionary (Little Women, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Robinson Crusoe and so on).

When Hanako was fifteen she became close friends with her new classmate Yanagiwara Akiko (later Byakuren). Although Akiko was eight years older, a love for poetry bound them together, and it was Akiko who introduced her to the poetry instructor Sasaki Nobutsuna. Influenced by the writer and translator Katayama Hiroko, whom she met through Sasaki, Hanako was deeply impressed by Mori Ogai’s translation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Improvisatore; reflecting that Japan boasted all too few books intended for all ages, she resolved to become a translator. Her first attempts at writing and translation were published in 1910 in the newsletter of the Japan Christian Women’s Organization.

In 1913, a year after her graduation, she became an English teacher at the Yamanashi Eiwa Girls’ School in her hometown. Around this time she attended a summer seminar on Christianity hosted by Hirooka Asako, where she became friendly with Ichikawa Fusae. Three years later she began to publish fairy tales and schoolgirl stories in the magazine Girls’ Graphic. Her first book appeared in 1917, when she was twenty-four, and the following year she left teaching to work as a translator and editor at a Christian publishing house in Tokyo. Shortly afterward she married Muraoka Keizo, who ran the company that printed her translations; he left his first wife for Hanako.

All went well until 1923, when both their companies were destroyed in the Great Kanto Earthquake. Three years later, their son Michio died of dysentery at the age of six. They had no other children, but later adopted Hanako’s niece Midori. Hanako held on to her translation work, publishing The Prince and the Pauper in 1927 and Pollyanna in 1930. From 1932 on, she started a radio program for children and became known around the country as “Radio Auntie.”

During the war Hanako—like most writers who were not explicitly left-wing—made gestures in the direction of support for imperial Japan, while also working for women’s suffrage. She began work on the translation she is best known for, Anne of Green Gables, in 1939, but her progress and its publication were hampered by the war, and it did not appear until 1952.

After the war Hanako became leader of the women’s wing of the Japan Progressive Party; she went on to hold various public and private-sector positions related to women’s and children’s literature, Christianity, and fair elections. She died in 1968 at the age of seventy-five, shortly before a planned trip to Prince Edward Island. Her adopted granddaughters (biologically her great-nieces) sponsored a collection of children’s books in her name and published her biography in 2008.

Her Anne of Green Gables remains the classic version, although a new edition including some passages she omitted has since appeared. She translated the entire Anne series as well as the Emily of New Moon series and various other works by L.M. Montgomery, all of which comprised only a small part of her translation oeuvre of seventy-odd books over forty years. A very partial selection includes Uncle Tom, The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Happy Prince, Daddy Longlegs, Alice in Wonderland, A Christmas Carol, The Life of Jane Addams, A Little Princess, The Secret Garden, The Water Babies, A Girl of the Limberlost, Ballet Shoes, The Yearling, Rose in Bloom, Huckleberry Finn, Choo Choo (by my adored Virginia Lee Burton), Cry the Beloved Country, and The Letters of Emily Dickinson.

Sources
Nakae
https://www.toyoeiwa.ac.jp/english/history/index.html (English) History of Toyo Eiwa Girls’ School, including a photo and brief biographical note about Hanako
https://www.toyoeiwa.ac.jp/career-after-graduation/2026/04/post20-muraokahanako.html (Japanese) Short biography of Hanako with photographs of her Anne of Green Gables manuscript and her study