From June 1983 to October 1985, His Imperial Highness Prince Naruhito studied at Merton College, Oxford. In 1993, he published a record of his time there under the Japanese title Thames to tomo ni, which was translated into English by the late Sir Hugh Cortazzi as The Thames and I. His Highness had become Crown Prince of Japan in 1989 on the death of his grandfather, Emperor Shōwa, and in the spring of 2019 he will himself ascend to the throne as Emperor of Japan, when his father, Emperor Akihito, abdicates. On this occasion, the Japan Society, in collaboration with Renaissance Books, is reissuing His Highness's book, for a new generation of readers.

The Thames and I is a charming and unusual memoir. Both Prince Naruhito's father and grandfather had visited Britain when they had been Crown Prince. But no-one in direct succession to the throne of Japan had ever studied outside Japan before, let alone at a British university. A Prince's life is one of privilege but also, inevitably, one marked by custom and constraint. A student's life is very different. His Highness evokes the life of the University, and particularly his college, with engaging detail and a sensitive memory for his impressions at the time. He describes a student world that many will recognise, wherever they may have studied: getting to know other students, finding one's way around a complex and confusing university town, becoming part of a college community, and settling down to a specific area of research (in Prince Naruhito's case, the River Thames as a highway and centre of transportation in the eighteenth century) and working in the archives. And, of course, a student's life, even that of Prince Naruhito, who was exceptionally diligent, is not all work: His Highness describes moments of relaxation – the college parties, rowing on the river, the trips to the pub, the outings to cinemas, theatres and concerts, as well as excursions further afield to discover other parts of Britain and Europe.

Running through the book is a fondness for Britain and its traditions and eccentricities, which many British visitors to Japan encounter among the Japanese.