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The Kwaidan Collection

An Illuminated Edition

Lafcadio Hearn author Bon Koizumi author Kent Williams illustrator Kyoko Yoshida editor Darren Aronofsky editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Beehive Books

Published:18th May '23

Should be back in stock very soon

The Kwaidan Collection cover

Spirits surround us in the latest Illuminated Edition: a tome of all the Japanese ghost stories and strange tales collected and translated by author Lafcadio Hearn and depicted by the majestic brushwork of artist Kent Williams.

Brimming with over sixty illustrations, and featuring essays from Academy Award-winning filmmaker Darren Aronofsky, scholar Kyoko Yoshida and Hearn's great-grandson and director of the Lafcadio Hearn Museum Bon Koizumi, this oversized slipcase volume enraptures the imagination as it chills the blood.

Drawn from Hearn's two most celebrated books, Kwaidan and Shadowings, this new title constitutes a complete compendium of the otherworldly and macabre folk tales that Hearn collected and translated during his travels through Japan in the late 19th century.

Kent Williams is an accomplished and multiple award-wining painter, comics artist, and draftsman, known for his richly textured and expressionist paintings. His illustrations sweep worlds of spirits across the page in an unsettling vibrant tumble. Corpse brides; flesh-eating jikininki goblins; the faceless mujina who haunt forgotten places; the rokuro-kubi, who remove their heads at night: all brought to life as never before under Williams' visionary brush. A stunning and startling new entry in Beehive Books celebrated, award-winning Illuminated Editions series.

The edition is housed in a shimmering die-cut sculpturally embossed slipcase, printed on uncoated acid-free paper, and published in an oversized 9x12" trim format.

"This volume contains enough background information to satisfy scholars and nonscholars alike...Boasting an attractive, embossed slipcase and dazzling interior art, The Kwaidan Collection is a beautiful compendium of Japanese supernatural tales." -Foreword Reviews


"Not only a fascinating illustrated volume of supernatural Japanese folk tales brilliantly interpreted by acclaimed artist Kent Williams, it's historically significant... These eerie Japanese legends have been given vibrant life and strangeness through the intense, brilliant work of Williams and the inspired design of publisher and design director Maëlle Doliveux." -LOCUS Magazine

ISBN: 9781948886321

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

168 pages