The Gates of Hell is a collection of twenty-six stories originally published in 1910. These tales, in the tradition of the contes cruels, range from a man who keeps a secret with devastating effects to a maniac who finds thrills in witnessing violent accidents, to a blind man who purposely loses his eyesight, to a prostitute who sleeps with the man who executed her husband… These rich and carefully plotted stories ratchet up suspense, sentence by bewitching sentence. Their horror is based on human behavior and psychological drama rather than supernatural elements, and the subtle beauty of their descriptions only further intensifies the turn of the knife when it inevitably comes — a truly decadent pleasure. Maurice Level (1875-926) was a French writer of fiction and drama whose macabre stories were printed in Paris newspapers and staged by the Grand-Guignol theater. His stories have been compared to those of his cousin Marcel Schwob, as well as Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, Octave Mirbeau, Guy de Maupassant and Edgar Allan Poe. The edition includes a historical introduction and notes by translator Jessica Sequeira.

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