The Lafcadio Hearn Collection

at the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library

Lafcadio Hearn, known to many as Koizumi Yakumo, was a prolific writer, reporter, scholar, teacher, translator, and by all accounts a true world citizen.

The Lafcadio Hearn Collection was donated to The University of Alabama's University Libraries by alumnus Dr. Wallace Bruce Smith, a 1903 graduate of the University of Alabama Medical School. Dr. Smith chose to donate the Hearn Collection to Special Collections largely due to the Libraries' already strong collection of New Orleans and Louisiana materials from the T.P. Thompson Collection, which serves as one of the foundations of of the W.S. Hoole Library's Rare Books Collection.

Lafcadio Hearn spent a decade in New Orleans prior to making Japan his permanent home in 1890. The Lafcadio Hearn Collection at the Hoole Library is one of the most complete collections of rare Hearn materials in the world. The Hearn Collection has been exhibited in conjunction with the Tuscaloosa area's annual Sakura Festival.

Several titles from the Lafcadio Hearn Collection have been included in Publishers' Bindings Online, 1815-1930: The Art of Books. To read more about Hearn and see some of the books from this collection, visit the Hearn essay and Gallery, Lafcadio Hearn: 19th Century World Citizen.

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