Some Chinese Ghosts

About this book

A bell rings with a voice that should not be inside it. Lovers meet beyond death, and an extraordinary object carries the cost of its maker's devotion. Lafcadio Hearn retells Chinese legends with an ear for melancholy.

Among the tales are The Soul of the Great Bell and The Story of Ming-Y, alongside accounts of celestial beings and enchanted craft. The stories mingle folklore, literary invention and the author's nineteenth-century understanding of Chinese culture. Their finest moments depend on a small, unforgettable image: an unanswered call, a vanished figure or a sound that outlives the person who made it.