A classic collection of spooky stories about spirits and goblins from ancient Japan.
In the late 1800s, Lafcadio Hearn collected and retold strange and wonderful ghostly tales from old Japanese legends. In these stories, a blind poet must perform for members of a dead royal family; an old man gives up his life in exchange for blossoms on a wilting cherry tree; a man trying to comfort a strange woman crying in the dark recoils in horror on seeing her face; and a mandarin duck haunts the hunter who shot her companion.
These are timeless and hair-raising stories in which humans and ghostly creatures co-exist. This new edition, with an introduction by Ruskin Bond, will leave readers spellbound.
About the author Patrick Lafcadio Hearn (1850?1904), known also by the Japanese name Koizumi, was a writer and journalist. He grew up in Europe and moved to the US where he worked for many years as a journalist. He went to Japan in 1890 as the Japan correspondent for a newspaper and soon settled down there, adopting the Japanese way of life. He is best known for his books about Japan, especially his collections of Japanese legends and ghost stories. The Lafcadio Hearn Memorial Museum and his old residence are still two of the most popular tourist attractions in the town of Matsue in eastern Japan.
