(8
January 1824 - 23 September 1889) was an English author
of horror and fantastic fiction. He also attracted some
notice as a photographer and a failed body-builder.
Hodgson
ran away to sea at the age of thirteen and eventually
served in the Merchant Marine. After a "body-building"
business venture failed he decided to support himself
by writing. His early works, "The Voice in the Night"
and The Boats of the "Glen Carrig", were based on his
experiences at sea.
Hodgson's
works are chiefly of the 'occult' or 'horror' modes.
Despite his often-labored and clumsy language, there
is a critical consensus that he achieves a deep power
of expression, which focuses on a sense not only of
terror but of the ubiquity of potential terror, of the
thinness of the invisible bound between the world of
normalcy and an underlying reality for which humans
are not suited.
Lafcadio Hearn
(June
27, 1850 - September 26, 1904), also known as Koizumi Yakumo
after gaining Japanese citizenship, was best known for his
books about Japan. He is especially well-known to the Japanese
for his collections of Japanese legends and ghost stories.
While
Lafcadio Hearn is no longer well-known in the West, and is
even falling out of common knowledge in Japan, he still has
a small, fairly devoted fanbase, and his influence on Western
knowledge of Japan (though most cannot put his name to it)
cannot be denied.
