Category: Biographies

Concerning Lafcadio Hearn; With a Bibliography by Laura Stedman

MANY conflicting accounts have been given concerning Hearn's parents and childhood. From his own statements made in 1889, the notes of which, taken down at the moment, are before me, he was born on June 27, 1850, at Leucadia, in Santa Maura, one of the Ionian Islands. His fath...

Chapters

12. CHAPTER XII.--APPRECIATIONS AND EPITOMES

TAKEN as a whole, the criticisms upon Hearn's work are complimentary. He has his warm admirers, and some who are not so enthusiastic; but those who criticize adversely do so wit...

4. CHAPTER IV.--THE NEW ORLEANS TIME

I HAVE somewhere read of a nomad child of the desert, born and rocked upon a camel, who was ever thereafter incapable of resting more than a day in one place. Whether or not the...

3. CHAPTER III.--THE PERIOD OF THE GRUESOME

WHEN Hearn arrived in Cincinnati, in 1871 or 1872, he was twenty-one or twenty-two years of age. All other methods of making a livelihood except that by his pen had failed, or w...

9. CHAPTER IX.--THE POET OF MYOPIA

THE dependence not only of the literary character and workmanship of a writer, but even his innermost psyche, upon vision, normal or abnormal, is a truth which has been dimly an...

10. CHAPTER X.--HEARN'S STYLE

"THE 'lovers of the antique loveliness,'" wrote Hearn, "are proving to me the future possibilities of a long-cherished dream--the English realization of a Latin style, modelled...

6. CHAPTER VI.--"GETTING A SOUL

SHORT though it was in time, the Philadelphia visit in 1889 has a value long in significance, that deserves epitomization. To begin with, it was Hearn's first experience of anyt...

7. CHAPTER VII.--"IN GHOSTLY JAPAN

PERHAPS I should not have succeeded in getting Hearn to attempt Japan had it not been for a little book that fell into his hands during the stay with me. Beyond question, Mr. Lo...

19. Volume II.

Articles and Reviews:-- _Academy, The_, January 26, 1907, vol. 72, p. 88. _Athenaeum, The_, February 2, 1907, p. 126. _Current Literature_, January, 1907, vol. 42, p. 49. Dunbar...

16. Part II.

THE TEMPTATION OF ST. ANTHONY, by Gustave Flaubert; translated from the Fifth Paris Edition, Vols. I-II. (Manuscript copy in the possession of Dr. Gould.) The half-page containi...

15. Volume II.

XVI. In a Japanese Garden (_Atlantic Monthly_, July, 1892) XVII. The Household Shrine XVIII. Of Women's Hair XIX. From the Diary of an English Teacher XX. Two Strange Festivals...

5. CHAPTER V.--AT MARTINIQUE

THE lure of the Sea and of the Unknown was upon Hearn during the entire stay at New Orleans. How deeply it entered his heart is shown in a fragment rescued by his friend, Dr. Ma...

8. CHAPTER VIII.--AS A POET

THAT Hearn was a true poet none will deny, but it was one of the frequent seeming illogicalities of his character that he had no love of metric or rhymed poetry. I doubt if ther...

2. CHAPTER II.--IN PERSON

WHEN, in 1889, Hearn appeared in my reception room, although I had not seen any photograph of him, and had not even known of his coming, I at once said, "You are Lafcadio?" The...

1. CHAPTER I.--HEREDITY AND THE

MANY conflicting accounts have been given concerning Hearn's parents and childhood. From his own statements made in 1889, the notes of which, taken down at the moment, are befor...

17. Volume I contains 364 pages; Volume II, numbered consecutively, the

Sunset in the desert. Enfeebled by prolonged fasting, the hermit finds himself unable to concentrate his mind upon holy things. His thoughts wander: memories of youth evoke regr...

11. CHAPTER XI.--SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

CONCERNING Hearn's outfitting of character by his parents little or nothing is known. It is of comparative unimportance because only a slight judicial familiarity with his works...

13. Part III

1890. TWO YEARS IN THE FRENCH WEST INDIES. By Lafcadio Hearn. Illustrated. (Publisher's Vignette.) New York: Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square, 1890. 8vo., pp. (12) 431, 38 ful...

14. Volume I.

I. My First Day in the Orient II. The Writing of Kobodaishi III. Jizo IV. A Pilgrimage to Enoshima V. At the Market of the Dead (_Atlantic Monthly_, September, 1891) VI. Bon-Odo...

18. Volume I.