Written by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, the uncontested master of the short story in modern Japanese literature, the stories in this anthology are perfect examples of the decadent aesthetic, with the gorgeous and the grotesque, the splendid and the sordid intertwining in highly polished prose.

Among them are ‘The Hell Screen’ a story comprising qualities of horror, the grotesque, and the macabre; ‘A Clod of Soil,’ a provocative tale of the relationship of an old woman and her ambitious daughter-in-law; ‘Nezumi-Kozo (The Japanese Robin Hood)’, a humorous and delightfully sardonic account of an experience on Kyoto Road one stormy nights; ‘Genkaku-Sanbo,’ a psychological study of an old man’s acceptance of the inevitability of death and his striving to speed it along; ‘The Spider’s Thread,’ a delicately written fable illustrating the Buddhist concept of the state of harmony which exits between Nature and Gautama Buddha in Paradise; and ‘The Nose,’ in which a Buddhism monk finds life difficult with his oversized nose.