Oriental Ghost Stories

Selected and Introduced by David Stuart Davies. ‘ ? and the man saw that she had no eyes or nose or mouth ? and he screamed.’ Lafcadio Hearn’s fascinating and unsettling ghost stories are a reinterpretation of oriental legends, and folktales. They are a potent blend of weird beauty and horror. Hearn, who referred to his narratives as ‘stories and studies of strange things’, believed that the spectral world was part of the oriental landscape. Lakes, mountains, ruined castles and terraced fields were the natural locale of ghostly spirits, and their intervention in human affairs was part of the natural order of things. Hearn’s apparitions are not a violent intrusion upon everyday reality; they are already a part of that reality, co-existing with the living. This collection contains the best of the work of this neglected master of the supernatural tale. Prepare to be charmed and chilled in equal measure. AUTHOR: Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) was born on a Greek island of Anglo-Irish / Greek parents, spent time in Ireland then moved to America, where he was a journalist and finally Japan, where he developed an interest in Japanese folklore.His ghost stories are based on reinterpretations of Japanese legends, and are available in the Wordsworth collection, ‘Oriental Ghost Stories’.