ABSTRACT
To RE-EXAMINE LAFCADIO HEARN by perusing not only his published writings but also his scattered letters and manuscripts is a most timely endeavour and will surely prove to be most rewarding, now that Hearn's significance as Japan's great interpreter is being seriously reconsidered both in the West and in Japan. Indeed, Hearn was that rara avis, a Western observer of Japan who, coming to the Far East in the 1890s, did not take as an article of faith the superiority of the industrial civilisation of the West. For example, far from adhering to the opinions of the mainstream of Western orientalists, Hearn was adamant in his conviction that for ordinary citizens of the lower strata of society, that fundamental human rights, freedom from horror, was safeguarded better in Japanese slums than in European capitals or America's great cities.
