Sign-In
Cart
Hell Screen: and Other Stories
Paperback
Series: Ryunosuke Akutagawa Collection, Book 2
Classic FictionGeneral Fiction
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Jun 9 2026
Pages: 96
Weight: 0.23
Height: 0.20 Width: 5.00 Depth: 8.00
Language: English
A painter is ordered to create a screen depicting hell, but his art demands a vision no ordinary imagination can supply. Around this central tale of beauty, cruelty, obsession, and terror, Ryunosuke Akutagawa gathers stories of vanity, Buddhist judgment, courtly humiliation, and supernatural rumor.
Hell Screen and Other Stories brings together five classic works: Hell Screen, The Nose, The Spider's Thread, Yam Gruel, and Dragon: The Old Potter's Tale. The collection moves from aristocratic splendor to the depths of hell, from comic self-consciousness to a sinner's failed chance at salvation.
Akutagawa stands among the defining masters of modern Japanese short fiction. His work transformed classical sources, Buddhist parables, historical anecdotes, and folklore into psychologically sharp narratives whose irony and precision still feel strikingly modern.
This volume offers a concentrated introduction to that range: grotesque beauty, moral unease, black comedy, and the unstable border between rumor and truth, all shaped by one of Japan's most influential literary voices.
Also in
Classic Fiction
James Fenimore Cooper: The Leatherstocking Tales Vol. 1 (Loa #26): The Pioneers / The Last of the Mohicans / The Prairie
Cooper, James Fenimore
Hardcover
Four Comedies: The Taming of the Shrew, a Midsummer Night's Dream, the Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night
Shakespeare, William
Paperback
The Princess Bride Deluxe Limited Edition: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure
Goldman, William
Paperback
The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the First Part of the Lord of the Rings
Tolkien, J. R. R.
Paperback
The Lord of the Rings Illustrated by the Author: Illustrated by J.R.R. Tolkien
Tolkien, J. R. R.
Hardcover
The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure
Goldman, William
Hardcover
The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (Revised and easy-to-read)
Bunyan, John
Vermilye, Alan
Paperback
Frankenstein, Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Stoker, Bram
Shelley, Mary
Paperback