Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things

by Lafcadio Hearn

Kwaidan, published in 1904 shortly before Lafcadio Hearn's death, is his retelling of Japanese ghost stories, most of them taken from old books and the talk of friends. Here are the blind musician Hoichi, made to play before the ghosts of a drowned court; the Snow Woman who spares a young woodcutter on a condition; the faceless mujina; the rokuro-kubi whose heads detach at night; and the corpse-eating jikininki. A second part, "Insect Studies," offers essays on butterflies, mosquitoes and ants in Japanese and Chinese lore. Hearn, who had settled in Japan in 1890 and taken the name Koizumi Yakumo, writes with restraint, letting the strangeness of the material speak. The full text is available to read online in your browser on Vinteuil, and the first story is free.