Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan

Lafcadio Hearn

• 20 december 2011
• 9781462902743

Samenvatting:

This is a complete, two-volume set of one of the greatest books on 19th century Japanese history and culture.

Though Lafcadio Hearn went on to write a dozen more books on Japan, this collection of first impressions remains his most popular. Among the reasons is that here, more than anywhere else, the author most vividly captured a place that so affected him that he stayed for the rest of his life. The modern reader can still, through these pages, experience that "first charm of Japan, intangible and volatile as a perfume."

Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan combines two volumes of a work that first appeared in 1894. In the pages of this book are the customs, the superstitions, the charming scenery, the revelations of Japanese character, and all the other elements that Lafcadio Hearn found so bewitching. Here, for example, are essays on such subjects as the Japanese garden, the household shrine, the festivals, and the bewildering Japanese smile—all aspects of Japanese life that have endured in spite of the changes that have taken place during the modernization of Japan.

This edition also contains a new foreword by noted writer Donnie Richie that puts Lafcadio Hearn into perspective for modern readers.