Early Biographical Sources on Lafcadio Hearn

This is a facsimile reprint of ten titles bound in four volumes. Much scholarly work on Lafcadio Hearn, the most important figure in the cultural relationship between the West and Japan, has already been published. However, how he was actually regarded and accepted by contemporary Western society is still an underexplored area. To answer the needs of researchers attempting to address this question, Early Biographical Sources on Lafcadio Hearn brings together eight biographies by his contemporaries, together with two pamphlets from conferences which were organized to commemorate his contribution to the Western understanding of Japanese culture.

Volume 1

George Milbry Gould, Concerning Lafcadio Hearn, with a Bibliography by Laura Stedman (Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs, 1908), c. 320pp.

Edward Thomas, Lafcadio Hearn (London: Constable & Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1912), c. 96pp.

Volume 2

Nina H. Kennard, Lafcadio Hearn, containing Some Letters from Lafcadio Hearn to His Half-sister, Mrs. Atkinson (London: Eveleigh Nash, 1912), c. 405pp.

Volume 3

Edward Larocque Tinker, Lafcadio Hern’s American Days (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1924), c. 396pp.

Chas E. Ball, Lafcadio Hearn: An Appreciation (London: Caxton Books, 1926), c. 12pp.

Elwood Hendrick, Lafcadio Hearn (New York: New York Public Library, 1929), c. 10pp.

Volume 4

Oscar Lewis, Hearn and His Biographers: The Record of a Literary Controversy (San Francisco: Westgate Press, 1930), c. 120pp.

Leona Queyrouze Barel, The Idyl: My Personal Reminiscences of Lafcadio Hearn (Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 1933), c. 71pp.

Kenneth Porter Kirkwood, Unfamiliar Lafcadio Hearn (Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 1936), c. 110pp.

Lafcadio Hearn in New Orleans (Lafcadio Hearn Society of New Orleans & Japan Institute New York, 1941), c. 47pp.