Lafcadio Hearn was one of the first great interpreters of things Japanese for Western readers. His keen intellect, poetic imagination and clear style have ensured him a devoted readership for more than a century.
G.R. Thompson is Professor of English at Purdue University. He has published several studies of Edgar Allan Poe, including Poe's Fiction: Romantic Irony in the Gothic Tales, Essays and Reviews of Edgar Allan Poe, Romantic Arabesque, Contemporary Theory, and Postmodernism and the Library of America edition of Poe's Essays and Reviews.