Lafcadio Hearn and His American Biographers

Abstract

American biographies bookend – and dominate – the voluminous range of writings about Lafcadio Hearn published since his death in 1904, extending from Elizabeth Bisland’s important foundational study, The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn (1906) to more recent treatments such as Steve Kemme’s The Outsider: The Life and Work of Lafcadio Hearn (2023). Examining this long tradition now allows us to bring into sharper focus the significance of two major preoccupations in Hearn’s reception – national identity and race – and to critically evaluate the ways in which American biographers have framed the distinctiveness of Hearn’s life and achievement in their work.[i]

[i] For a brief treatment of this topic see Paul Murray, ‘Lafcadio Hearn (1850–1904)’, The Green Book: Writings on Irish Gothic, Supernatural and Fantastic Literature 16 (Samhain 2020), pp. 70–71.