Mr. Moto Is So Sorry was originally published in serial form in the Saturday Evening Post from July 2 to August 13, 1938, and was first published in book form in 1938. It is the fourth of six Mr. Moto novels and can also be found in the omnibus Mr. Moto's Three Aces published in 1939. The Moto novels are spy fiction and adventure novels set in the Orient, which in the 1930s was considered mysterious and exotic. Mr. Moto is a spy for the Imperial Japanese government and often deals with people who are accidentally involved in his work.