This FREE e-book from Kindle represents my first Kindle purchase . . . Essentially a dry run into the Kindle universe. On the technical side, I did not like the e-formatting of the book. Otherwise, this is a charming, though dated, brief history of Zen Buddhism in China and Japan, first published in 1913.
A previous reviewer says that the book was confusing. I can understand why. With its late Nineteenth Century prose style and constructions ("To-Day," "Shakya Muni"), it reads very unlike present day books on Zen. When this book was written, Zen was virtually unheard of in America and Europe. The first Zen teacher to come to America, Soyen Shaku, had arrived in Chicago for the World Congress of Religions in 1893, only two decades earlier, and his direct impact in transmitting the Dharma had been miniscule; but Soyen's disciple, D.T. Suzuki, was to have a major impact on Zen in America over many decades.
It's important to realize that, more than likely, a forgotten hard copy of this book sits dustily on the shelves of the Library of Congress, untouched since before World War I, except for this scanning. This is very literally THE introductory volume of Zen in the West. There are better, more modern ones that are far more accessible to the 21st Century student of Zen. Still, for a serious student of Zen, this is a must have book if only because it is so obscure.