Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things

by Lafcadio Hearn

Overview

Most of the following Kwaidan, or Weird Tales, have been taken from old Japanese books.... Some of the stories may have had a Chinese origin: the very remarkable "Dream of Akinosuke," for example, is certainly from a Chinese source. But the Japanese story-teller, in every case, has so recolored and reshaped his borrowing as to naturalize it.... One queer tale, "Yuki-Onna," was told me by a farmer of Chofu, Nishitama-gori, in Musashi province, as a legend of his native village. Whether it has ever been written in Japanese I do not know; but the extraordinary belief which it records used certainly to exist in most parts of Japan, and in many curious forms.

Here is an engaging collection of tales, ghost stories, and observations that capture the enduring folk-spirit and quaint "exoticism" of a land once thought mysterious and sinister. Hearn is a natural raconteur and fills his narratives with curious details and asides. Several of the pieces here were adapted for the film Kwaidan, directed by Masaki Kobayashi in 1965. Following the traditional stories are unusual "insect studies" on butterflies, mosquitoes, and ants.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781420967517
Publisher:	Digireads.com
Publication date:	03/09/2020
Pages:	88
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.21(d)

About the Author

Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) was born on the Greek island of Lefkas, the son of an Anglo-Irish surgeon in the British army and a Greek mother. After his parent's divorce when he was six, he was brought up in Dublin by a great aunt. At the age of nineteen, he went to America, eventually ending up in New Orleans as a newspaper reporter. His flight from Western materialism brought him to Japan in 1890, where he worked for an English newspaper, the Kobe Chronicle, and taught in various schools. In 1896, he began teaching English literature at Tokyo Imperial University, a position he held until 1903, and at Waseda University. Hearn married a samurai's daughter, Koizumi Setsu, became a Japanese citizen and a Buddhist and changed his name to Koizumi Yakumo. At the young age of 54, he died of a heart attack. Hearn's search for beauty and tranquility, for pleasing customs and lasting values, made him a confirmed Japanophile. His keen intellect, poetic imagination, and wonderful clear style permitted him to penetrate to the very essence of things Japanese. He became the great interpreter of things Japanese to the West. Hearn's most famous work is a collection of lectures entitled Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation (published posthumously in 1905). His other books on Japan include Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (1894), Out of the East (1895), Kokoro (1896), Gleanings in Buddha Fields (1897), Exotics and Retrospectives (1898), In Ghostly Japan (1899), Shadowings (1900), and A Japanese Miscellany (1901).

Table of Contents

Introduction     vii
Kwaidan
The Story of Mimi-Nashi-Hoichi     3
Oshidori     15
The Story of O-Tei     19
Ubazakura     23
Diplomacy     25
Of a Mirror and a Bell     29
Jikininki     35
Mujina     41
Rokuro-Kubi     45
A Dead Secret     57
Yuki-Onna     61
The Story of Aoyagi     67
Jiu-Roku-Zakura     79
The Dream of Akinosuke     81
Riki-Baka     89
Hi-Mawari     93
Horai     97
Insect-studies
Butterflies     101
Mosquitoes     121
Ants     125

Editorial Reviews

"Wonderful photographs. . . . [Watanabe's] black and white photographs add a layer of understanding and environmental context for the accompanying stories. His photographs are at times as dark as Hearn’s stories. The Kwaidan are a collection of mysterious stories that are well suited for a vivid imagination."

PhotoBook Journal

"The photo book is a new edition of the critically acclaimed book of the same name . . . [featuring] a collection of horror stories, Japanese legends, and ghost stories presented in English for Western audiences. The tales are some of the first examples of modern fantasy literature: including man-eating goblins, insects who parrot human behavior, and a musician who performs to a dead audience. Hearn died soon after the book’s publication, only finding posthumous success. Over a century later, Watanabe has used the eerie stories as the conceptual basis for his imagery in Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, presenting this new edition of the classic text in print."

IGNANT magazine

"Out of this year’s vast ocean of photography books, Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, stands out for me. Written by Lafcadio Hearn over a century ago, and now brilliantly illustrated with accompanying photographs by award-winning photographer Hiroshi Watanabe, these folk stories are revitalized in this new edition."

Photo-eye, 2019 Favorite Photobooks - Elizabeth Avedon

"Written by Lafcadio Hearn over a century ago, and now brilliantly illustrated with accompanying photographs by award-winning photographer Hiroshi Watanabe, these folk stories are revitalized in this new edition."

2019 Favorite Photobooks Photo-eye