Lafcadio Hearn

Patrick Lafcadio Hearn (/hɜrn/; 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 ten-year stay in that city. Hearn was born in and named for the island of Lefkada, one of the Greek Ionian Islands, on 27 June 1850.:p. 3 He was the son of Surgeon-Major Charles Bush Hearn (of County Offaly, Ireland) and Rosa Antoniou Kassimatis, a Greek woman of noble Kytheran lineage through her father, Anthony Kassimatis. His father was stationed in Lefkada during the British occupation of the islands, where he was the highest-ranking surgeon in his regiment. Lafcadio was baptized Patricios Lefcadios Hearn (Πατρίκιος Λευκάδιος Χερν) in the Greek Orthodox Church, but he seems to have been called "Patrick Lefcadio Kassimati Charles Hearn" in English. Hearn's parents were married in a Greek Orthodox ceremony on 25 November 1849, several months after his mother had given birth to the couple's first child and Hearn's older brother, George Robert Hearn, on 24 July 1849. George Hearn died on 17 August 1850, two months after Lafcadio's birth.