Lafcadio Hearn

On a yellowing Bible leaf, a cramped Greek inscription records the arrival of “Patricio, Lafcadio, Tessima, Carlos Hearn” at Santa Maura in August 1850. Which of the many lives carried in that name would Lafcadio claim as his own?

In this early-twentieth-century biography, Nina H. Kennard follows Hearn’s tangled family line across Ireland and the Mediterranean, among churchmen, soldiers, and a mother whose nationality remains uncertain. Lafcadio prized the possibility of Romany blood above grander family credentials, proudly showing the thumb-mark said to prove it. Yet his inheritance seems to hold a dozen competing histories—and a restless imagination drawn toward distant worlds. How did these scattered origins shape the man who would interpret Eastern thought for Western readers?

With centuries of literature, it's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks. We hunt down public domain works and restore them so they're not lost to the world.

Who are we? We're Cairn Press. Our background is in design, publishing, typography, and technology. These skills fuel our mission to create the highest quality Public Domain eBooks available online, at an affordable price. We give them the treatment they deserve; our proprietary process restores books for a better overall user experience in design, readability, and e-reader compatibility.