Tales grotesque and curious by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
"Tales grotesque and curious" by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa is a collection of short stories written in the early 20th century. The volume gathers sharply etched fables, parables, and historical vignettes that blend the macabre with dry wit, probing vanity, faith, survival, and moral ambiguity. Across monks, mothers, thieves, scholars, and even devils, the tales turn folklore and history into ironic studies of human nature. The opening of the collection begins with a translator’s
introduction that sketches Akutagawa’s brief life, meticulous craft, major influences, and the genesis of several stories, followed by a contents list and the first run of tales. “Tobacco and the Devil” playfully recasts Japan’s first tobacco as a devil’s import, outwitted by a cattle dealer yet triumphant in spreading the vice; “The Nose” follows a priest’s comic torment over his deformity and the cruel mirth of others; and “The Handkerchief” shows a professor receiving a bereaved mother whose poised restraint is betrayed only by trembling hands, prompting his reflection on sincerity and performance. “Rashōmon” places a dismissed servant amid Kyoto’s decay, confronting a hag who plunders corpses and then choosing theft himself; “Lice” depicts lice-ridden samurai arguing, even nearly dueling, over whether to cull, keep, or eat the pests; and “The Spider’s Thread” offers a parable of a sinner given a lifeline to salvation undone by selfishness. “The Wine Worm” opens on a blistering day with a rich tippler bound on a threshing floor, an exotic monk, and a Confucian onlooker, setting up an eccentric encounter before the excerpt breaks. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Akutagawa, Ryūnosuke, 1892-1927 |
|---|---|
| Translator | Shaw, Glenn W. (Glenn William), 1886-1961 |
| Title | Tales grotesque and curious |
| Original Publication | Japan: The Hokuseido Press, 1930. |
| Contents | Tobacco and the devil -- The nose -- The handkerchief -- Rashōmon -- Lice -- The spider's thread -- The wine worm -- The badger -- The ball -- The pipe -- Mōri Sensei. |
| Credits | Hendrik Kaiber and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Books project.) |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PL: Language and Literatures: Languages and literatures of Eastern Asia, Africa, Oceania |
| Subject | Japan -- Social life and customs -- Fiction |
| Subject | Short stories, Japanese -- Translations into English |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 78105 |
| Release Date | Mar 4, 2026 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 5628 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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