Hearn, Lafcadio (1850-1904), was an American author. His best-known works display a weird imagination and a polished style. Hearn said, “I have pledged myself to the worship of the Odd, the Queer, the Strange, the Exotic, and the Monstrous.”
Hearn was born on June 27, 1850, in the Ionian Islands off the west coast of Greece. He moved to the United States at the age of 19 and eventually settled in New Orleans. There he wrote a series of eerie newspaper sketches called “Fantastics.” After living for a time in the West Indies and New York City, he moved to Japan in 1890. Hearn became a Japanese citizen and a professor of English literature at the Imperial University of Tokyo.
Hearn wrote many fantastic and supernatural tales. They were collected in such works as Some Chinese Ghosts (1887) and Kwaidan (1904). His first and best-known novel is Chita (1889). Hearn also wrote several books about Japan. He died on Sept. 26, 1904.
