Transcriber’s Note
Some corrections were made where printer’s errors were most likely,as described in the Note at the end of the text.Other than those corrections, no changes to spelling have been made.Hyphenation of words at line or page breaks are removed if other instancesof the word warrant it.
The ‘dateline’ of each letter, which is right justifiedin the original, is here presented as a subtitle to each header.
This book was published in two volumes, of which this is the first.The second volume was released as Project Gutenberg ebook #42313,available here.The Indexto that Volume will provide links to pages in this one.
By Lafcadio Hearn
THE ROMANCE OF THE MILKY WAY, AND OTHER STUDIES AND STORIES. 12mo, gilt top, $1.25 net. Postage extra.
KWAIDAN: Stories and Studies of Strange Things. With two Japanese Illustrations. 12mo, gilt top, $1.50.
GLEANINGS IN BUDDHA-FIELDS. 16mo, gilt top, $1.25.
KOKORO. Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life. 16mo, gilt top, $1.25.
OUT OF THE EAST. Reveries and Studies in New Japan. 16mo, $1.25.
GLIMPSES OF UNFAMILIAR JAPAN. 2 vols. crown 8vo, gilt top, $4.00.
STRAY LEAVES FROM STRANGE LITERATURE. 16mo, $1.50.
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
Boston and New York.
LIFE AND LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN
VOLUME I
THE LIFE AND LETTERS
OF
LAFCADIO HEARN
BY
ELIZABETH BISLAND
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
COPYRIGHT 1906 BY ELIZABETH BISLAND WETMORE
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published December 1906
PREFACE
In the course of the preparation of these volumes there was graduallyaccumulated so great a number of the letters written by Lafcadio Hearnduring twenty-five years of his life, and these letters proved of sointeresting a nature, that eventually the plan of the whole work wasaltered. The original intention was that they should serve only toilluminate the general text of the biography, but as their number andvalue became more apparent it was evident that to reproduce them in fullwould make the book both more readable and more illustrative of thecharacter of the man than anything that could possibly be related ofhim.
No biographer could have so vividly pictured the modesty andtender-heartedness, the humour and genius of the man as he hasunconsciously revealed these qualities in unstudied communications tohis friends. Happily—in these days when the preservation of letters isa