Step into the extraordinary life of the man who made an impact as an observer wherever he lived, and went on to become the leading western interpreter of Japan and Japanese culture--a position he still occupies today. Born in Greece and abandoned as a child, Lafcadio Hearn lived the life of an exile. He travelled the world and became a famous writer but always felt like an outsider--in Dublin, London, Cincinnati, New Orleans, and French-speaking Martinique. To him, none of these places felt like home. Hearn's life in America was punctuated by a string of successes and failures. In Cincinnati he became the city's best-known crime reporter but was fired after marrying a black woman. Devastated, he moved to New Orleans, where he championed French Creole and Caribbean culture and created the city's image as a place of voodoo and debauchery (the image which many Americans still hold today). Hearn arrived in Japan at a time of historic change. Sent there as a correspondent, he soon found himself alone and jobless. He settled in the remote town of Matsue, firmly believing that Japan would provide him with an endless supply of rich writing material--perhaps enough to last a lifetime. Over the next dozen years, Hearn published 15 books which were lauded by the likes of Mark Twain, William Butler Yeats, Albert Einstein and Charlie Chaplin. Hearn's books made him famous as the leading writer on Japan and Japanese culture. Discover the fascinating journey of Hearn's life and the series of events--from peaks to pitfalls--that shaped his remarkable story, including: His troubled childhood and emigration to America with no job or money His career as a popular newspaper writer and essayist in Cincinnati and New Orleans His life in Japan where he became a Buddhist, married the daughter of a Samurai and took the Japanese name Yakumo Koizumi Hearn's worldwide fame as a writer, especially for his works on ghosts, demons, monsters and the supernatural world of Japanese folklore Author Steve Kemme is president of the Lafcadio Hearn Society/USA and a leading expert on Hearn's life and writings. This book includes a foreword by Bon Koizumi, Hearn's great-grandson and director of the Lafcadio Hearn Memorial Museum in Matsue, Japan, along with 30 images which portray the pivotal people and places in Hearn's amazing life.

Spirits surround us in the latest Illuminated Edition: a tome of all the Japanese ghost stories and strange tales collected and translated by author Lafcadio Hearn and depicted by the majestic brushwork of artist Kent Williams.  Brimming with over sixty illustrations, and featuring essays from Academy Award-winning filmmaker Darren Aronofsky, scholar Kyoko Yoshida and Hearn's great-grandson and director of the Lafcadio Hearn Museum Bon Koizumi, this oversized slipcase volume enraptures the imagination as it chills the blood. Drawn from Hearn's two most celebrated books, KWAIDAN and SHADOWINGS, this new title constitutes a complete compendium of the otherworldly and macabre folk tales that Hearn collected and translated during his travels through Japan in the late 19th century.  Kent Williams is an accomplished and multiple award-wining painter, comics artist, and draftsman, known for his richly textured and expressionist paintings. His illustrations sweep worlds of spirits across the page in an unsettling vibrant tumble. Corpse brides; flesh-eating jikininki goblins; the faceless mujina who haunt forgotten places; the rokuro-kubi, who remove their heads at night: all brought to life as never before under Williams' visionary brush. A stunning and startling new entry in Beehive Books celebrated, award-winning Illuminated Editions series. The edition is housed in a shimmering die-cut sculpturally embossed slipcase, printed on uncoated acid-free paper, and published in an oversized 9x12" trim format.