Writings from Japan

The improbable life story of Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) included a peculiarly gothic childhood in Ireland during which he was successively abandoned by his mother, his father and his guardian; two decades in the United States, where he worked as a journalist and was sacked for marrying a former slave; and a long period in Japan, where he married a Japanese woman and wrote about Japanese society and aesthetics for a Western readership. His ghost stories, which were drawn from Japanese folklore and influenced by Buddhist beliefs, appeared in collections throughout the 1890s and 1900s. He is a much celebrated figure in Japan.

PART ONE: RECOLLECTIONS: My First Day in the Orient (Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan); The Chief City of the Province of the Gods (Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan); In the Cave of the Children's Ghosts (Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan); At the Market of the Dead (Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan); By the Japanese Sea (Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan); Beside the Sea (A Japanese Miscellany); Drifting (A Japanese Miscellany); In Yokohama (Out of the East); Bits of Life and Death (Out of the East); At a Railway Station (Kokoro); In Cholera-Time (Kokoro); A Letter from japan (The Romance of the Milky Way); In a Japanese Hospital (A Japanese Miscellany); Fuji-no-Yama (Exotics and Retrospectives). Part TWO: REFLECTIONS: In a Japanese Garden (Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan); Survivals (Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation); Insect-Musicians (Exotics and Retrospectives); Kusa-Hibari (Kotto); A Glimpse of Tendencies (Kokoro); The Japanese Family (Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation). PART THREE RELATIONS: A Conservative (Kokoro); Kimiko (Kokoro); The Story of Mimi-Nashi-Hoichi (Kwaidan); Ubazakura (Kwaidan); Yuki-Onna (Kwaidan); Jikininki (Kwaidan); Ningya-no-Haka (Gleanings in Buddha-Fields); The Reconciliation (Shadowings); The Case of O-Dai (A Japanese Miscellany); The Story of Kwashin Koji (A Japanese Miscellany); Of a Promise Broken (A Japanese Miscellany).