Lafcadio Hearn

The biography traces the life of a peripatetic writer and letter-writer from childhood through schooling and restless travels, charting periods spent in North America, the West Indies, and East Asia. It draws on letters, diaries, and reminiscences to illuminate personal habits, religious and intellectual concerns, marriage and fatherhood, and the shaping of his literary voice, especially his fascination with local cultures, folklore, and ghostly subjects. Chapters recount major postings, editorial work, and domestic details, and conclude with his final illness, funeral, and later visits to his grave. Throughout, correspondence and contemporary testimony provide the principal evidence for a sympathetic, anecdotal portrait.