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Upon his arrival in Japan in 1890, Lafcadio Hearn found himself enamored with the culture, people, and stories of the country, and would make Japan his home until his death in 1904. His collections of stories published during this time became the most popular of Hearn's writings, and earned him veneration worldwide as not only a great translator of Japanese mythology, but as a sensational teller of strange and wonderfully macabre tales. «Kwaidan» is most commonly translated as weird or horror tales, but to assign one word to the people, places, ghosts and gods in this work, one can only use the word strange. This collection of supernatural tales includes «The Story of Mimi-Nashi-H??chi,» «Ubazakura,» and «Rokuro-Kubi,» and other stories translated from old Japanese texts. Hearn was made a professor of English literature in the Imperial University of Tokyo in 1895, and is today revered by the Japanese for providing significant insights into their own national character.

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Upon his arrival in Japan in 1890, Lafcadio Hearn found himself enamored with the culture, people, and stories of the country, and would make Japan his home until his death in 1904. His collections of stories published during this time became the most popular of Hearn's writings, and earned him veneration worldwide as not only a great translator of Japanese mythology, but as a sensational teller of strange and wonderfully macabre tales. «In Ghostly Japan» is a wonderful collection of twelve ghostly stories and explorations of Shinto and Buddhist proverbs: «Fragment,» «Furisodé,» «Incense,» «A Story of Divination,» «Silkworms,» «A Passional Karma,» «Footprints of Buddha,» «Ululation,» «Bits of poetry,» «Japanese Buddhist Proverbs,» «Suggestion,» «Ingwa-Banashi,» «Story of a Tengu,» and «At Yaidzu.» Hearn was made a professor of English literature in the Imperial University of Tokyo in 1895, and is today revered by the Japanese for providing significant insights into their own national character.

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"Even the worst tea is sweet when first made from the new leaf."–Japanese proverb.Here is a Lafcadio Hearn gem about Japanese customs and traditions destined to survive the inroads of time and Western trends. This masterpiece has the deep azure patina of Fuji-san; it utters the chirping notes of Suzumushi, the caged insect; it is as melodious as Kajika, the singing frog–and is an altogether delightful and entrancing portrayal of a nation's «Exotics and Retrospectives,» told by a master storyteller.

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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 six 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 imagination. All in all, it is a delightful collection of Japanese curiosities and fancies.

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This delightful book presents seven pieces from the rich heritage of Lafcadio Hearn—one of the first and most preeminent scholars to travel to and write about Japan. They are a natural outgrowth of Hearn's peerless philosophy: «If you have any feeling—no matter what—strongly latent in the mind (even only a haunting sadness or a mysterious joy), you may be sure that it is expressible.»Hearn's language, his incomparable prose, ripened and mellowed consistently to the end, enabling him to write rich, melancholy, and profound passages such as the final paragraph in The Romance of the Milky Way: «I see the thrill of its shining stream, and the mists that hover along its verge, and the water-grasses that bend in the winds of Autumn. White Orihime I see at her starry loom, and the ox that graces on the farther shore, and I know that the falling dew is the spray from the herdsman's oar. And the heaven seems very near and warm and human; and the silence about me is filled with the dream of a love unchanging, immortal, fever yearning and forever young, and forever left unsatisfied by the paternal wisdom of the Gods.»

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This classic collection of Japanese ghost and folk stories is of enormous importance to the field of Japanese studies.Japanese curios, with sundry cobwebs, excite the curiosity and imagination of a master spinner of tales, and the result is Kotto, another Lafcadio Hearn classic about old Japan. Here Hearn spins tales from old Japanese books to illustrate some strange beliefs. They are only curios, he says laconically, but some of these legends will make your spine tingle and your heart trip faster, like the one about a waterfall called Yurei–Daki, or the Cascade of Ghosts.The ghosts were as real as their warnings, but a bold woman failed to heed them—a horrible mistake. Hearn could also find in the commonplace the stuff of which imperishable literature is spun. A drop of dew hangs quivering on the bamboo lattice of his study window. Its tiny sphere repeats the colors of the morning—of sky and field and far-off trees, of a cottage with children at play. But much more than the visible world is imaged by that dewdrop: the world invisible, of infinite mystery, is likewise repeated. Buddhism finds in such a dewdrop the symbol of that other microcosm called the Soul.

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This classic text about Buddhism in Japan by Lafcadio Hearn—on of the first Westerns to write about Japan—will be of great interests to scholars and Japanophiles alike.Lafcadio Hearn's books continue to charm and captivate readers, as the exotic subjects about which he wrote charmed and captivated him. Gleanings In Buddha-Fields presents more Hearn magic as he enters into the spirit of Buddhism as though he were born into it.Hearn says that if he were a god, dwelling in some old Izumo shrine on the summit of a hill, then «as air to the bird, as water to the fish, so would all substance be permeable to the essence of me. I should pass at will into the walls of my dwelling to swim in the long gold bath of a sunbeam, to thrill in the heart of a flower, to ride on the neck of a dragonfly.»He writes of a trip to Kyoto, telling of hazy autumn rice fields, with dragonflies darting over the drooping grain; maples crimsoning above a tremendous gorge; ranges of peaks steeped in morning mist; and a peasant's cottage perched on the verge of some dizzy mountain road.

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This is a complete, two-volume set of one of the greatest books of 19th century Japanese history and culture. Though Lafcadio Hearn went on to write a dozen more books on Japan, this collection of first impressions remains his most popular. Among the reasons is that here, more than anywhere else, the author most vividly captured a place that so affected him that he stayed for the rest of his life. The modern reader can still, through these pages, experience that «first charm of Japan, intangible and volatile as a perfume.» Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan combines two volumes of a work that first appeared in 1894. In the pages of this book are the customs, the superstitions, the charming scenery, the revelations of Japanese character, and all the other elements that Lafcadio Hearn found so bewitching. Here, for example, are essays on such subjects as the Japanese garden, the household shrine, the festivals, and the bewildering Japanese smile—all aspects of Japanese life that have endured in spite of the changes that have taken place during the modernization of Japan. The Japanese character and the Japanese tradition are still fundamentally the same as Hearn found them to be, and for this reason, his writing is still extremely revealing to modern readers. This edition also contains a new foreword by noted writer and examiner of Japanese culture Donnie Richie that puts Lafcadio Hearn and his classic works into perspective for readers just discovering Hearn's writing for the first time.

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The 15 classic essays collected in Kokoro examine the inner spiritual life of Japan. The title itself can be translated as «heart,» «spirit» or «inner meaning,» and that's exactly what this collection teaches us about Japan. Sometimes touching and always compelling, the writings here tell the stories of the people and social codes that make Japan the unique place it is. «Kimiko» paints the portrait of a beautiful geisha; «By Force of Karma» tells the story of a Buddhist monk; and in «A Conservative,» we come to know the thoughts and actions of a Samurai. As an early interpreter of Japan to the West, Lafcadio Hearn was without parallel in his time. His numerous books about that country were read with a fascination that was a tribute to his keen powers of observation and the vividness of his descriptions. Today, even though Japan has changed greatly from what it was when he wrote about it, his writing is still valid, for it captures the essence of the country—an essence that has actually changed a good deal less than outward appearances might suggest. In a word, the Japanese character and the Japanese tradition are still fundamentally the same as Hearn found them to be, and for this reason, his books are still extremely revealing to readers in the West.

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This collection of writings from Lafcaido Hern paints a rare and fascinating picture of pre-modern Japan Over a century after his death, author, translator, and educator Lafcaido Hearn remains one of the best-known Westerners ever to make Japan his home. Almost more Japanese than the Japanese—"to think with their thoughts" was his aim—his prolific writings on things Japanese were instrumental in introducing Japanese culture to the West.In this masterful anthology, Donald Richie shows that Hearn was first and foremost a reliable and enthusiastic observer, who faithfully recorded a detailed account of the people, customs, and culture of late nineteen-century Japan. Opening and closing with excerpts from Hearn's final books, Richie's astute selection from among «over 4,000 printed pages» not including correspondence and other writing, also reveals Hearn's later, more sober and reflective attitudes to the things that he observed and wrote about.Part One, «The Land,» chronicles Hearn's early years when he wrote primarily about the appearance of his adopted home. Part Two, «The People,» records the author's later years when he came to terms with the Japanese themselves. In this anthology, Richie, more gifted in capturing the essence of a person on the page than any other foreign writer living in Japan, has picked out the best of Hearn's evocations. Select writings include: The Chief City of the Province of the GodsThree Popular BalladsIn the Cave of the Children's GhostsBits of Life and DeathA Street SingerKimikoOn A Bridge

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