Ghost Stories PDF EPUB Audio

Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things

First published: 1904
Pages: 126

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Read by Nadine Eckert-Boulet, Scott Carpenter, Availle and others · 3 h 51 min · 21 parts

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Introduction
6:49
The Story of Mimi-Nashi-Hoichi
23:17
Oshidori
3:31
The Story of O-tei
8:13
Ubazakura
3:39
Diplomacy
5:37
Of A Mirror and a Bell
8:59
Jikininki
9:28
Mujina
5:12
Rokuro-Kubi
19:10
A Dead Secret
5:39
Yuki-Onna
10:14
The Story of Aoyagi
19:44
Jiu-Roku-Zakura
3:11
The Dream of Akinosuke
12:00
Riki-Baka
4:30
Hi-Mawari
5:30
Horai
12:04
Insect Studies - Butterflies
27:15
Insect Studies - Mosquitoes
7:26
Insect Studies - Ants
30:12

Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (1903) is a public domain work.

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About this book

Lafcadio Hearn spent his last fourteen years in Japan, took the name Koizumi Yakumo, and built much of this 1904 collection from old texts and from tales his wife told him aloud. The ghost stories are short and cold: the blind musician Hoichi with sutras painted over his body, the snow woman Yuki-Onna, the wife who comes back after death. Hearn neither explains them nor softens them, which is why they still work. The book closes with three essays on insects, on butterflies and mosquitoes and ants, read through Buddhist ideas of the soul and rebirth. Kobayashi's 1964 film drew from it, and Western readers have met Japanese ghost lore largely through it. Free PDF and EPUB edition available here.

About the author

Lafcadio Hearn

Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) was born in Greece to Irish and Greek parents, worked as a journalist in Cincinnati and New Orleans, then moved to Japan in 1890. He married Koizumi Setsu, took Japanese citizenship, and wrote a shelf of books interpreting the country for Western readers.