Books By Lafcadio Hearn, Christopher E. G. Benfey - Author

A singular figure in American letters, Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) had a life as complex as his heritage. Born in the Ionian Islands to a Greek mother and an Irish father, he was abandoned by his parents, raised in boarding schools, and then sent penniless to the United States, where he began a career as a newspaper journalist. After earning a measure of literary fame in his adopted country, he moved permanently to Japan, where he became a leading interpreter of Japanese ways for a Western audience.

Christopher Benfey, volume editor, is Mellon Professor of English at Mount Holyoke. His books include The Double Life of Stephen Crane (1992), Degas in New Orleans (1997), The Great Wave (2003), and  A Summer of Hummingbirds (2008).