An Edo period novel which imitated the style of *kabuki 歌舞伎 stage books *shōhon 正本. The shōhonjitate novel included references to stage equipment and props, jōruri 浄瑠璃 lyrics, and included drawings of the dressing rooms, the theater, and scenes from the plays. Illustrations of figures took the form of famous actor portraits *yakusha-e 役者絵.
These novels combined three popular cultural activities of Edo, i.e. popular novels, kabuki plays, and *ukiyo-e 浮世絵, all in one. The earliest example published in 1815 was the Shōhonjitate gakuya tsuzuki-e 正本製楽屋続絵 by Ryūtei Tanehiko 柳亭種彦 (1783-1842) with pictures by Utagawa Kunisada 歌川国貞 (1786-1865). Tanehiko's shōhonjitate series was favorably received and continued to be published until 1831. After that, many books following Tanehiko's format were published. Shōhon utsushi 正本写し, which translated a popular segment of kabuki script into a novel format, was another type of theater book published after a play was performed. These books are useful for the study of kabuki pictures in ukiyo-e.