Patrick Lafcadio Hearn Koizumi Yakumo (小泉八雲)
Born	(1850-06-27)June 27, 1850 Lefkada, Greece
Died	26 September 1904(1904-09-26) (aged 54) Tokyo, Empire of Japan
Language	English
Nationality	Irish, Greek, Japanese
Alma mater	Ushaw College
Spouse(s)	Alethea ("Mattie") Foley Koizumi Setsu

Patrick Lafcadio Hearn (27 June 1850 – 26 September 1904), known also by the Japanese name Koizumi Yakumo (小泉 八雲^?), was an international writer, known best for his books about Japan, especially his collections of Japanese legends and ghost stories, such as Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things. In the United States, Hearn is also known for his writings about the city of New Orleans based on his 10-year stay in that city.

Life[link]

Early life[link]

Hearn was born in Lefkada (the origin of his middle name), one of the Greek Ionian Islands. He was the son of Sergeant Major Charles Bush Hearn (of County Offaly, Ireland) and Rosa Antoniou Kassimati, a Greek woman of noble Kytheran lineage through her father, Anthony Kassimati.^[1] His father was stationed in Lefkada during the British occupation of the islands. Lafcadio was baptized Patricio Lefcadio Hearn in the Greek Orthodox Church. It is not known whether Hearn's parents were ever legally married, and the Irish Protestant relatives on his father's side considered him to have been born out of wedlock. This may, however, have been because they did not recognize the legitimacy of a Greek Orthodox marriage ceremony for a Protestant.^[2]

Hearn relocated to Dublin, Ireland, at the age of two years, where he was brought up in the suburb of Rathmines. Other members of his family also had artistic interest. His father's brother Richard was at one time a well-known member of the Barbizon set of artists, although he did not become well known as a painter, possibly due to a lack of personal ambition. Young Hearn had a rather casual education, but in 1865 was attending the Roman Catholic Ushaw College, Durham. He was injured in a playground accident during his teens, suffering loss of vision in his left eye.

Emigration[link]

The religious faith in which he was indoctrinated was soon lost, and at 19 he was sent to live in the United States, where he settled in Cincinnati, Ohio. For a time, he was impoverished. He eventually befriended the English printer and communalist Henry Watkin. With Watkin's help, Hearn did low-grade journalism work.

By the strength of his talent as a writer, Hearn soon obtained a job as a reporter for the Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, working for the newspaper from 1872 to 1875. Writing with creative freedom in one of Cincinnati's largest circulating newspapers, he became known for his lurid accounts of local murders, developing a reputation as the paper's premier sensational journalist, as well as the author of sensitive accounts of some of the disadvantaged people of Cincinnati. The Library of America selected one of these murder accounts, "Gibbeted," for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American True Crime, published in 2008.

Hearn continued to occupy himself with journalism and with observation and reading, and meanwhile his erratic, romantic, and rather morbid idiosyncrasies developed. While in Cincinnati, he married^{[citation needed]} Alethea ("Mattie") Foley, a African-American woman, an illegal act at the time. When the scandal was discovered and publicized, he was dismissed from the Enquirer and went to work for the rival newspaper The Cincinnati Commercial.^{[citation needed]} Hearn divorced in 1877.

In 1874 Hearn and the young Henry Farny, later a renowned painter of the American West, wrote, illustrated, and published a weekly journal of art, literature and satire they titled Ye Giglampz that was published for nine issues. (The Cincinnati Public Library reprinted a facsimile of all nine issues in 1983).

New Orleans[link]

During the autumn of 1877, Hearn left Cincinnati for New Orleans, Louisiana, where he initially wrote dispatches on his discoveries in the "Gateway to the Tropics" for the Cincinnati Commercial.

Hearn's former home on Cleveland Avenue in New Orleans is preserved as a registered historic place.

He lived in New Orleans for nearly a decade, writing first for the newspaper Daily City Item and later for the Times Democrat. The vast number of his writings about New Orleans and its environs, many of which have not been collected, include the city's Creole population and distinctive cuisine, the French Opera, and Louisiana Voodoo. His writings for national publications, such as Harper's Weekly and Scribner's Magazine, helped create the popular reputation of New Orleans as a place with a distinct culture more akin to those of Europe and the Caribbean than to that of the rest of North America. His best-known Louisiana works are Gombo Zhèbes, Little Dictionary of Creole Proverbs in Six Dialects (1885); La Cuisine Créole (1885), a collection of culinary recipes from leading chefs and noted Creole housewives who helped make New Orleans famous for its cuisine; and Chita: A Memory of Last Island, a novella based on the hurricane of 1856 first published in Harper's Monthly in 1888. He also published in Harper's Weekly the first known written article (1883) about Filipinos in the United States, the Manilamen or Tagalags, one of whose villages he had visited at Saint Malo, southeast of Lake Borgne in Saint Bernard Parish, Louisiana.

Hearn was little known then, and even now he is little known for his writing about New Orleans, except by local cultural devotees. However, more books have been written about him than any former resident of New Orleans except Louis Armstrong.^[3]

Hearn's writings for the New Orleans newspapers included impressionistic descriptions of places and characters and many stern, vigorous editorials denouncing political corruption, street crime, violence, intolerance, and the failures of public health and hygiene officials. Despite the fact that he is credited with "inventing" New Orleans as an exotic and mysterious place, his obituaries of the vodou leaders Marie Laveau and Doctor John Montenet are matter-of-fact and debunking. A selection of Hearn's writings were collected in S. Fredrick Starr's book Inventing New Orleans: Writings of Lafcadio Hearn, published by the University Press of Mississippi.^[2]

Harper's sent Hearn to the West Indies as a correspondent in 1887. He spent two years in Martinique and produced two books: Two Years in the French West Indies and Youma, The Story of a West-Indian Slave, both in 1890.

Later life in Japan[link]

Lafcadio Hearn, shown with Koizumi Setsu. Note the way he is facing—he always preferred to be photographed this way so that his left eye could not be seen.

In 1890, Hearn went to Japan with a commission as a newspaper correspondent, which was quickly terminated. It was in Japan, however, that he found a home and his greatest inspiration. Through the goodwill of Basil Hall Chamberlain, Hearn gained a teaching position during the summer of 1890 at the Shimane Prefectural Common Middle School and Normal School in Matsue, a town in western Japan on the coast of the Sea of Japan. The Lafcadio Hearn Memorial Museum and his old residence are still two of Matsue's most popular tourist attractions. During his fifteen-month stay in Matsue, Hearn married Koizumi Setsu, the daughter of a local samurai family. He became a naturalized Japanese, assuming the name Koizumi Yakumo, in 1896 after accepting a teaching position in Tokyo.

During late 1891, Hearn obtained another teaching position in Kumamoto, Kyūshū, at the Fifth Higher Middle School, where he spent the next three years and completed his book Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (1894). In October 1894, he secured a journalism job with the English-language newspaper Kobe Chronicle, and in 1896, with some assistance from Chamberlain, he began teaching English literature at Tokyo Imperial University, a job he had until 1903. In 1904, he was a professor at Waseda University. On 26 September 1904, he died of heart failure at the age of 54 years. His grave is at the Zōshigaya Cemetery in Toshima, Tokyo.

In the late 19th century, Japan was still largely unknown and exotic to Westerners. However, with the introduction of Japanese aesthetics, particularly at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900, Japanese styles became fashionable in Western countries. Consequently, Hearn became known to the world by his writings concerning Japan. In later years, some critics would accuse Hearn of exoticizing Japan, but because he offered the West some of its first descriptions of pre-industrial and Meiji Era Japan, his work has historical value.^[4]

Legacy[link]

Admirers of Hearn's work have included Ben Hecht,^[5] John Erskine, and Malcolm Cowley.^[6]

The Japanese director Masaki Kobayashi adapted four Hearn tales into his 1965 film, Kwaidan. Some of his stories have been adapted by Ping Chong into his puppet theatre, including the 1999 Kwaidan and the 2002 OBON: Tales of Moonlight and Rain.

Hearn's life and works were celebrated in The Dream of a Summer Day, a play that toured Ireland during April and May 2005, which was staged by the Storytellers Theatre Company and directed by Liam Halligan. It is a detailed dramatization of Hearn's life, with four of his ghost stories included.

Yone Noguchi is quoted as saying about Hearn, "His Greek temperament and French culture became frost-bitten as a flower in the North."^[7]

There is also a cultural center named for Hearn at the University of Durham.

Hearn was a major translator of the short stories of Guy de Maupassant.^[8]

In Ian Fleming's 1964 novel You Only Live Twice, James Bond retorts to his nemesis Blofeld's comment of "Have you ever heard the Japanese expression kirisute gomen?" with "Spare me the Lafcadio Hearn, Blofeld."

Books written by Hearn on Japanese subjects[link]

• Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (1894)
• Out of the East: Reveries and Studies in New Japan (1895)
• Kokoro: Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life (1896)
• Gleanings in Buddha-Fields: Studies of Hand and Soul in the Far East (1897)
• The boy who drew cats (1897; Houghton Mifflin, Boston)
• Exotics and Retrospectives (1898)
• Japanese Fairy Tales (1898) and sequels
• In Ghostly Japan (1899)
• Shadowings (1900)
• Japanese Lyrics (1900) - on haiku
• A Japanese Miscellany (1901)
• Kottō: Being Japanese Curios, with Sundry Cobwebs (1902)
• Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (1903) (which was later made into the movie Kwaidan by Masaki Kobayashi)
• Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation (1904; published just after his death)
• The Romance of the Milky Way and other studies and stories (1905; published posthumously)
• Japan's Religions: Shinto and Buddhism (no date)

See also[link]

	Ireland portal
	Japan portal
	Biography portal

• Goryo Hamaguchi
• Lafcadio Hearn Memorial Museum
• List of horror fiction authors

References[link]

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

Further reading[link]

• Benfey, Christopher, ed. (2009). Lafcadio Hearn: American Writings (Library of America). ("Some Chinese Ghosts" • "Chita" • "Two Years in the French West Indies" • "Youma" • "Selected Journalism and Letters")
• Bisland, Elizabeth. (1906). The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn, Vol. I. New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company.
• -----. (1906). The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn, Vol. II. New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company.

• Bronner, Milton, editor, Letters from the Raven: Being the Correspondence of Lafcadio Hearn with Henry Watkin (1907)
• Cott, Jonathan. Wandering Ghost: The Odyssey of Lafcadio Hearn (1991)
• Gould, G. M. Concerning Lafcadio Hearn (1908)
• Hearn, Lafcadio, Inventing New Orleans: Writings of Lafcadio Hearn,S. Frederick Starr, editor (University Press of Mississippi, 2001)
• Hearn, Lafcadio. Lafcadio Hearn's America, Simon J. Bronner, editor (2002)
• Kennard, Nina H., Lafcadio Hearn; containing some letters from Lafcadio Hearn to his half-sister, Mrs. Atkinson (New York, D. Appleton and company, 1912) [1]
• Lurie, David. "Orientomology: The Insect Literature of Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904)", in JAPANimals: History and Culture in Japan's Animal Life, ed. Gregory M. Pflugfelder and Brett L. Walker, University of Michigan Press, 2005.
• Narita, Tatsushi.T. S. Eliot and his Youth as 'A Literary Columbus'. Nagoya: Kougaku Shuppan, 1911.
• Noguchi, Yone. Lafcadio Hearn in Japan (1910)
• Pulvers, Roger. Lafcadio Hearn: interpreter of two disparate worlds, Japan Times, January 19, 2000
• Rexroth, Kenneth, The Buddhist Writings of Lafcadio Hearn (1977)
• Starrs, Roy "Lafcadio Hearn as Japanese Nationalist", in "Nichibunken Japan Review: Journal of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies", Number 18, 2006, pp. 181–213.

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Lafcadio Hearn

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Lafcadio Hearn

• Works by Lafcadio Hearn at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Lafcadio Hearn at LibriVox (audiobooks)
• Lafcadio Hearn and Haiku
• Hearn's influence in literature
• essay by Roy Starrs on "Lafcadio Hearn as a Japanese Nationalist"
• 1905 Magazine Article with photos
• A Journey to Lefcadio Hearn's birthplace
• Lafcadio Hearn's papers at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia

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There are many people in history who are commonly appended with the phrase "the Great", or who were called that or an equivalent phrase in their own language. Other languages have their own suffixes such as e Bozorg and e azam in Persian and Urdu respectively.

In Persia, the title "the Great" at first seems to be a colloquial version of the Old Persian title "Great King". This title was first used by the conqueror Cyrus II of Persia.^[1]

The Persian title was inherited by Alexander III of Macedon (336–323 BC) when he conquered the Persian Empire, and the epithet "Great" eventually became personally associated with him. The first reference (in a comedy by Plautus)^[2] assumes that everyone knew who "Alexander the Great" was; however, there is no earlier evidence that Alexander III of Macedon was called "the Great".

The early Seleucid kings, who succeeded Alexander in Persia, used "Great King" in local documents, but the title was most notably used for Antiochus the Great (223–187 BC).

Later rulers and commanders began to use the epithet "the Great" as a personal name, like the Roman general Pompey. Others received the surname retrospectively, like the Carthaginian Hanno and the Indian emperor Ashoka the Great. Once the surname gained currency, it was also used as an honorific surname for people without political careers, like the philosopher Albert the Great.

As there are no objective criteria for "greatness", the persistence of later generations in using the designation greatly varies. For example, Louis XIV of France was often referred to as "The Great" in his lifetime but is rarely called such nowadays, while Frederick II of Prussia is still called "The Great". A later Hohenzollern - Wilhelm I - was often called "The Great" in the time of his grandson Wilhelm II, but rarely later.

Rulers[link]

• Abbas I of Persia (1571–1629), Shah of Iran
• Akbar (1542–1605), ruler of the Mughal Empire of South Asia, mainly India
• Alain I of Albret (1440–1522), French aristocrat
• Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), King of Macedonia, Persia, Greece, Egypt, and all of Mesopotamia
• Alexander I of Georgia (1386–1446), King of Georgia
• Alfonso III of León (c. 848-910), King of León, Galicia and Asturias
• Alfred the Great (848/849-899), King of Wessex
• Antiochus III the Great (c. 241–187 BC), ruler of the Seleucid Empire
• Ashoka the Great (c. 304–232 BC), Indian emperor of the Maurya dynasty
• Ashot I of Iberia “the Great”(died 826/830), presiding prince of Iberia (modern Georgia),
• Askia Mohammad I (c. 1442–1538), ruler of the Songhai Empire
• Bhumibol Adulyadej (born 1927), King of Thailand
• Bolesław I Chrobry (967-1025), sometimes called "the Great", first King of Poland
• Bruno the Great (925–965), Archbishop of Cologne and Duke of Lotharingia (also listed in the following section)
• Buddha Yodfa Chulaloke (1736–1809), founder and ruler of the Rattanakosin Kingdom (in what is now Thailand)
• Cnut the Great (c. 985 or 995-1035), King of Denmark, England, Norway and parts of Sweden
• Casimir III the Great (1310–1370), King of Poland
• Catherine the Great (1729–1796), Empress of Russia
• Chandragupta II (reigned 375-413/415), also known as Vikramaditya, ruler of the Gupta empire in India
• Charlemagne (died 814), King of the Franks and Emperor of the Romans
• Chulalongkorn (1853–1910), King of Siam (now Thailand)
• Chlothar II (584-629), King of Neustria and King of the Franks
• Conrad, Margrave of Meissen (c. 1097-1157), Margrave of Meissen
• Constantine I (c. 272-337), Roman emperor
• Cyaxares the Great (c. 625-585 BC), third king of Media
• Cyrus the Great (c. 600 BC or 576 BC–530 BC), founder and ruler of the Persian or Achaemenid Empire
• Darius the Great (550 – 486 BC), third ruler of the Persian Empire
• Devapala (died 850), ruler of the Pala Empire in the Indian subcontinent
• Dionysius I, Greek tyrant of Syracuse^[3]
• Ferdinand I of León and Castile (c. 1015–1065), King of León and Count of Castile
• Frederick the Great (1712–1786), King of Prussia
• Genghis Khan (1162?-1227), founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire
• Gero (c. 900–965), ruler of Marca Geronis, a very large march in Europe
• Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden (1594–1632), King of Sweden, founder of the Swedish Empire, and noted military leader
• Gwanggaeto the Great, King of Goguryeo, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea^[4][5]
• Hanno the Great, the name of three leaders of Carthage, in the 4th, 3rd, and 2nd centuries BC
• Henry I, Duke of Burgundy (946–1002)
• Henry IV of France (1553–1610), King of France and King of Navarre
• Herod the Great (73/74 BC-4 BC), King of Judea
• Hugh the Great (898-956), Duke of the Franks and Count of Paris
• Hugh Magnus of France (1007–1025), co-King of France
• Hugh I, Count of Vermandois (1057–1101)
• Humphrey I de Bohun (died c. 1123), Anglo-Norman aristocrat
• Ivan III of Russia (1440–1505), Tsar of Russia
• John I of Portugal (1358–1433), King of Portugal and the Algarve
• John II of Aragon (1398–1479), King of Aragon and, through his wife, King of Navarre
• Justinian I (483-565), Byzantine Emperor
• Kamehameha I (c. 1758-1819), first King of Hawai'i
• Kanishka (died c. 127), ruler of the Kushan Empire in Central Asia and parts of India
• Kvirike III of Kakheti (1010–1029), King of Kakheti in eastern Georgia
• Kublai Khan (1215–1294), Mongol ruler in the 13th century and Emperor of China; founder of the Yuan Dynasty
• Llywelyn the Great (c. 1172–1240), Prince of Gwynedd and de facto ruler of most of Wales
• Louis I of Hungary (1326–1382), King of Hungary, Croatia and Poland
• Mangrai the Great (1238–1317), Lanna, northern Thailand
• Emperor Meiji (1852–1912), Emperor of Japan
• Mircea I of Wallachia (1355–1418)
• Mithridates II of Parthia (died 88 BC), ruler of the Parthian Empire (in present day Iran)
• Mithridates VI of Pontus (134 BC–63 BC), ruler of Pontus and the Bosporan Kingdom
• Mstislav I of Kiev (1076–1132), Grand Prince of Kievan Rus
• Naresuan (1555–1605), King of Ayutthaya
• Narai (1633–1688), King of Ayutthaya (in what is now modern Thailand)
• Odo the Great (died c. 735), Duke of Aquitaine
• Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (912-973)
• K'inich Janaab' Pakal (603-683), ruler of the Mayan city-state of Palenque
• Parakramabahu I of Polonnaruwa (1123–1186), King of Sri Lanka
• Peter Krešimir IV of Croatia (died 1075), King of Croatia
• Peter the Great (1672–1725), Tsar of Russia
• Peter III of Aragon (1239–1285), King of Aragon and King of Sicily
• Pompey (106 BC-48 BC), military and political leader of the late Roman Republic, rival of Julius Caesar
• Radama I (1793–1828), first king of greater Madagascar
• Raja Raja Chola I (c. 947-1014), Indian emperor of the Cholas.^[6][7][8]
• Rajendra Chola I (reigned 1014–1044), Tamil King of India
• Ramesses II (reigned 1279 BC – 1213 BC), considered the greatest pharaoh of Ancient Egypt
• Ram Khamhaeng (around 1237 to 1247-1298), King of Sukhothai (in present day Thailand)
• Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona (1082–1131), also Count of Provence and various other counties
• Rhodri the Great (c. 820–878), King of Gwynedd (in present day Wales)
• Roman the Great (after 1160-1205), Grand Prince of Kiev
• Saladin (c. 1138-1193), Kurdish Sultan of Egypt and Syria, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, and victor over the Crusaders
• Samudragupta (c. 335–375), ruler of the Gupta empire in the Indian subcontinent
• Sancho III of Navarre (c. 992-1035), King of Kingdom of Navarre
• Sargon of Akkad (died c. 2215 BC), ruler of the Akkadian Empire
• Sejong the Great (1397–1450), Korean king^[9]
• Shapur II (309-379), king of the Sassanid Empire, Persia
• Simeon I of Bulgaria (864/865-927), ruler of the First Bulgarian Empire
• Stephen III of Moldavia (1433–1504), Prince of Moldavia (Romania)
• Stephen Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia (c. 1308-1355), King of Serbia and Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks
• Taksin (1734–1782), King of the Thonburi Kingdom (Thailand)
• Tamar (1160-1123), Queen of the Georgian Empire
• Timur (1336–1405), better known as Tamerlane, founder of the Timurid Dynasty
• Theobald II, Count of Champagne (1090–1151), Count of Blois and of Chartres as Theobald IV, Count of Champagne and of Brie
• Theodoric the Great (454-526), King of the Ostrogoths, regent of the Visigoths and a viceroy of the Byzantine Empire
• Theodosius I (347-395), Roman emperor
• Tigranes the Great (140-55 BC), Emperor of Armenia
• Tiridates III of Armenia (285-339), King of Armenia
• Umar (c. 586 to 590–644), second caliph of the Muslim Empire
• Valdemar I of Denmark (1131–1182), King of Denmark
• Valentinian I (364-375), Roman Emperor
• Vladimir I of Kiev (c. 958-1015), ruler of Kievan Rus
• Vytautas (c. 1350-1430), archduke of the Lithuanian Grand Duchy
• William I, Count of Burgundy (1020–1087), Count of Burgandy and Mâcon
• William V, Duke of Aquitaine (969-1030), also Count of Poitou
• Xerxes I (519-465 BC), King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire (Persia)
• Yu the Great (c. 2200-2100 BC), legendary ruler in ancient China

Religious figures[link]

• Abraham the Great of Kashkar (ca. 492-586), monk and saint of the Assyrian Church of the East
• Abraham Kidunaia (died c. 366, hermit, priest, and Christian saint of Mesopotamia
• Albertus Magnus (1193/1206–1280), medieval German philosopher and theologian
• Anthony the Great (c. 251–356), early Christian saint of Egypt
• Babai the Great (c. 551–628), Assyrian church leader
• Basil of Caesarea (330-379), Greek bishop and theologian
• Bruno the Great (925–965), Archbishop of Cologne and Duke of Lotharingia (also listed in the previous section)
• Euthymius the Great (377-473), abbot and Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox saint
• Gertrude the Great (1256-c. 1302), German Benedictine, mystic, theologian and Roman Catholic saint
• Pope Gregory I (c. 540-604)
• Hiyya the Great, 3rd-century rabbi, Palestine
• Pope John Paul II (1920–2005)
• Pope Leo I (c. 391 or 400-461)
• Macarius of Egypt (c. 300-391), Egyptian hermit
• Pope Nicholas I (c. 800-867)
• Photius I of Constantinople (c. 810–c. 893), Eastern Orthodox saint and Patriarch of Constantinople
• William of Maleval (died 1157), founder of the Catholic congregation of Williamites

Other[link]

• Beli Mawr, a figure in medieval Welsh literature and genealogies
• Emmy the Great, folk singer
• Matteo Rosso the Great, Roman politician and father of Pope Nicholas III
• Prokop the Great, Hussite general in Bohemia

See also[link]

• Epithet
• List of monarchs by nickname
• List of nicknames of European Royalty and Nobility: G-I
• James, son of Zebedee, also known as James the Greater, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus
• Ajax (mythology), called Ajax the Greater
• Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, whose common honorific "Mahatma" means "Great Soul"

Notes[link]