Ogai Mori (his autonym is Rintaro Mori) was born at the end of the Edo Period (the age was about to change dramatically from the Edo to Meiji Periods), that is in 1862, as the eldest son of the Mori family that had been doctors for the Tsuwano domain (Shimane Prefecture). Ogai entered "Yorokan," a domain school, at the age of seven, and later went to Tokyo at the age of 10 with his father, following wishes of the Kamei family, a feudal lord. Although he enrolled in a premedical course of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Tokyo, in the next year at the age of 11, he lied about his age because the course did not accept students below the age of 13.
 Young Ogai maintained excellent academic records, aiming to study in Germany, which was to be sponsored by the government, and become a scholar. However, he met with misfortune, such as getting out of condition when taking a graduation examination, and could not realize his dream of becoming a government-sponsored student. Therefore, he started his career as an army doctor, receiving advice from those around him.

 As for his private life, Ogai got married with Toshiko, the eldest daughter of Baron Akamatsu, a vice admiral, in 1889, and had a baby next year. However, he divorced his wife soon for some reasons, and left Ogaisou. In the course of time, the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) began, and he joined the army as an army doctor.
 He returned to Japan in 1895, and immediately started "Mesamashi-gusa," a literary magazine. Famous writers at that time, including Rohan Koda, Koyo Ozaki and Ryokuu Saito, wrote for the first issue, and the magazine received great acclaim.
 However, Ogai had to work in Kokura, Kitakyushu City, so his literary activities were restricted, and later "Mesamashi-gusa" discontinued. Although he had to leave Tokyo, a hub of literature, against his will, and could not write a novel after the publication of the Germany Trilogy, he made an effort to do translation and criticism, and translated "The Improvisatore," a novel by Hans Andersen, which was published later.
 He remarried Shige Araki in 1902, and went to Tokyo. However, the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) began two years later, that is in 1904, and he went to the front again. He composed tanka and haiku poems, and sent those poems to his family and friends to keep in touch with them. Those poems were later compiled as "Uta Nikki" with cooperation of Kyoshi Takahama and Nobutsuna Sasaki.

 Although Ogai got back into the literary world after returning to Japan in 1906, Koyo, Ryokuu, and Shiki Masaoka who Ogai fraternized with through "Mesamashi-gusa" had already died. While the naturalist literature advocated by Toson Shimazaki, Katai Tayama and others appeared on the scene, Takuboku Ishikawa, Mokutaro Kinoshita and Isamu Yoshii looked up to Ogai as their mentor, and started "Subaru," a magazine. Ogai wrote important novels one after another, such as "Vita Sexualis" (1909), "Seinen," or adolescent, (1910), and "Gan," or wild goose, (1911), for the magazine.
 Ogai also had a profound knowledge of the Western art history. A character modeled after Naojiro Harada, who Ogai got acquainted with while studying in Germany, appeared in his novel "Utakatano-ki," and we can know through its descriptions that Ogai was fond of seeing art works in Germany. Ogai worked as a lecturer of art anatomy at the invitation of Tenshi Okakura, who was the principal of Tokyo Fine Arts School at that time, after returning from Germany in 1891. Ogai's art criticisms and abridged translations of aesthetics texts frequently appeared in "Mesamashi-gusa," while descriptions of Western paintings were seen several times in his novels. He likened a girl's face to "Nana" by Édouard Manet in his novel "Seinen," and mentioned "Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway" by William Turner when he saw a car (rare in those days) parked in front of Ueno Seiyoken. He also compared beauty of a woman to "Mona Lisa" by Leonardo da Vinci. Since he had such a profound knowledge of the Western art, he was appointed an examiner for the Western-style painting section of the first Bunten exhibition (the art exhibition sponsored by the Ministry of Education) in 1907, and became the first director of "Teikoku Bijutsuin," or the Imperial Fine Arts Academy, in his later days, that is in 1919.
 He also published historical novels, including "Abe Ichizoku," or Abe family, and "Sansho Dayu," or Sansho the Bailiff, in 1910s. He left the army for which he had served for 35 years in 1916, and became the president and director general of Imperial Museum (the present Tokyo National Museum) in 1917. He led a busy life until just before he died at the age of 60 in 1922.