Books And Habits: From The Lectures Of Lafcadio Hearn

by Lafcadio Hearn, John Erskine (Introduction)

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

348 pages, Paperback

Published June 25, 2007

About the author

Greek-born American writer Lafcadio Hearn spent 15 years in Japan; people note his collections of stories and essays, including Kokoro (1896), under pen name Koizumi Yakumo.

Rosa Cassimati (Ρόζα Αντωνίου Κασιμάτη in Greek), a Greek woman, bore Patrick Lafcadio Hearn (Πατρίκιος Λευκάδιος Χερν in Greek or 小泉八雲 in Japanese), a son, to Charles Hearn, an army doctor from Ireland. After making remarkable works in America as a journalist, he went to Japan in 1890 as a journey report writer of a magazine. He arrived in Yokohama, but because of a dissatisfaction with the contract, he quickly quit the job. He afterward moved to Matsué as an English teacher of Shimané prefectural middle school. In Matsué, he got acquainted with Nishida Sentarô, a colleague teacher and his lifelong friend, and married Koizumi Setsu, a daughter of a samurai.
In 1891, he moved to Kumamoto and taught at the fifth high school for three years. Kanô Jigorô, the president of the school of that time, spread judo to the world.

Hearn worked as a journalist in Kôbé and afterward in 1896 got Japanese citizenship and a new name, Koizumi Yakumo. He took this name from "Kojiki," a Japanese ancient myth, which roughly translates as "the place where the clouds are born". On that year, he moved to Tôkyô and began to teach at the Imperial University of Tôkyô. He got respect of students, many of whom made a remarkable literary career. In addition, he wrote much reports of Japan and published in America. So many people read his works as an introduction of Japan. He quit the Imperial University in 1903 and began to teach at Waseda University on the year next. Nevertheless, after only a half year, he died of angina pectoris.

Reviews

[Lee Belbin]

I have read many of Hearn's books about Japanese culture and totally enjoyed them but this was the alternative - telling Japanese about western culture. I skipped 95% of the peotry (it does nothing for me, sorry) so that left a little about morals and philosophy, which for the period around 1900 was a novelty. If you are interested in a English view of western culture for Japanese via poetry, go for it. It did very little for me.

[Guenter]

I usually don't read books about poetry but Lafcadio Hearn plumbs profound and universal truths in his typical erudite and insightful manner in a series of lectures given to Japanese students. He ignites my passion for the obscure unlike anyone else. What an incredibly talented, perceptive and enlightened writer. I am reading all his books which are free as digital downloads on iBooks. A real treasure trove.