In Ghostly Japan

Published in 1899, "In Ghostly Japan" is an earlier collection by Lafcadio Hearn gathering supernatural stories and reflective essays drawn from Japanese folklore, Buddhism, and everyday spiritual practice. Open Library catalogs the work under subjects including Buddhism, folklore, and Japanese social life and customs, and Hearn's own bibliography (listed on Project Gutenberg alongside his other titles) places it between "Gleanings in Buddha Fields" (1897) and "Shadowings" (1900) in his sustained multi-decade project of interpreting Japanese religion and folk belief for English-speaking readers. The collection opens with a meditative account of a mountain ascent led by a Buddhist teacher and moves through stories touching on cursed objects, reincarnation, and the cultural meaning of incense in Japanese spiritual life, weaving Hearn's firsthand observations from his years living in Japan together with older folk material. Alongside "Kwaidan," it is one of the works most responsible for shaping how English readers encountered Japanese ghost lore and Buddhist folk belief in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.