Tanaka is predominately known in Japan for the wide range of horror and ghost stories he penned during his lifetime. Yet what is most remarkable about these works is not what Tanaka writes about, but how he manages to write about them in ways that are at the same time traditional and modern, Japanese yet somehow clearly influenced by the West. The four translations in this collection are just a taste of some of the most well-crafted ghost stories Tanaka created. -Four never translated before stories: “Toad’s Blood”, “The Smell of Death”, “The Inn of the Dead on Mt. Tateyama” and “Lantern”. -Introduction to the life of Tanaka.