Lafcadio Hearn

"Sometimes the swamp-forest visibly thins away from these shores into wastes of reedy morass where, even of breathless nights, the quaggy soil trembles to a sound like thunder of breakers on a coast." Images are expertly imbued into the mind by vivid description. In Chita, Lafcadio Hearn paints life on a marshy, eclectic Gulf Coast island in the middle of the nineteenth century. Chita is a young white girl who is orphaned by a shipwreck and then...

Out of the East came wonderful tales by a Westerner who loved the old Japan-devotion, ancestor worship, courtesy, and kindness-and record his feelings for the rest of the world to read. This collection of "reveries and studies," as author and legendary Japanologist Lafcadio Hearn subtitled Out of the East, contains unforgettable tales like "The Red Bridal," in which the conflict between duty and human feelings leads to tragedy in classically Japanese...

Excerpt: "While engaged upon this little mosaic work of legend and fable, I felt much like one of those merchants told of in Sindbad's Second Voyage, who were obliged to content themselves with gathering the small jewels adhering to certain meat which eagles brought up from the Valley of Diamonds. I have had to depend altogether upon the labor of translators for my acquisitions, and these seemed too small to deserve separate literary setting. By cutting...

This collection of essays and classic stories set in Japan by Lafcadio Hearn one of the earliest Westerners to write about Japan is an essential addition to any collection of Japanese literature. Shadowings is made up of three parts: "Stories from Strange Books," which presents sex old Japanese tales; "Japanese Studies," in which Hearn explores the lore of his adopted country; and "Fantasies," a group of essays in which he gives free rein to his wide-ranging...

Kokoro, meaning "heart," "spirit," and "way of being" is a fitting title for this 1896 collection, for these fifteen essays focus on the interior life of Japan and its people. Hearn's insights into Japan's soul are unmatched by any Westerner, and his portraits of individual Japanese are as profound as his long essays on the civilization.

The Japanese have two kinds of ghosts in their folklore-the spirits of the dead, and the spirits of the living. This classic of Japanese literature invites you to take your choice if you dare. In Ghostly Japan collects twelve ghostly stories from Lafcadio Hearn, deathless images of ghosts and goblins, touches of folklore and superstition, salted with traditions of the nation. While some of these stories contain nightmare imagery worthy of a midnight...

Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn by Lafcadio Hearn These chapters, for the most part, are reprinted from Lafcadio Hearn's "Interpretations of Literature," 1915, from his "Life and Literature," 1916, and from his "Appreciations of Poetry," 1917. Three chapters appear here for the first time. They are all taken from the student notes of Hearn's lectures at the University of Tokyo, 1896-1902, sufficiently described in the earlier...

This collection of Japanese supernatural stories is a classic work in the field of Japanese horror. Known primarily as an early interpreter of Japanese culture and customs, the famous writer Lafcadio Hearn also wrote ghost stories-delicate, transparent, ghostly sketches-about his adopted land. Many of the stories found in Kwaidan, stories and studies of strange things, are based on Japanese tales of long ago told to him by his wife; others possibly...

En un breve relato incluido en La muralla china, Kafka notó que, a riesgo de desmoronarse, el deseo de dejar pasar a través puede transformar a un hombre en puente. Hijo de madre griega y padre irlandés, Lafcadio Hearn abrazó Japón quizá para transformarse en eso mismo. Prueba de ello es La canción del arrozal, una delicada serie de observaciones minúsculas que procuran no solo poner al mágico mundo del Japón tradicional ante la mirada occidental...

A Story with Heart. "We owe more to our illusions than to our knowledge." A collection of 15 essays that examine the inner spiritual life of Japan through the people that make Japan the unique place it is.