My dissertation project analyses the genre of love novels in modern Japanese literature. In three chapters, I take as case studies three well-known novelists and their popular love novels in order to show how each of them subverts in their work notions of pre-marital purity, love marriage, and the concept of romantic love itself. Through my research I bring a multi-faceted understanding of love novels that goes beyond the close reading of texts, and incorporates an analysis of various media, such as textbooks or magazines. Using archival research, I intend to uncover how love and love novels were discussed in now-forgotten textbooks, girls' magazines, or weekly magazines for men.