What Was It?, the Horla, and Other Horrors

Our mission is to provide the world with beautiful, accessible, illuminating editions of classic horror fiction, introducing these chilling gems to new generations, making them gorgeously illustrated and giving you critical, historical, and artistic insights with every single story. This is one of those books. BUILDING on the weird tales of Hoffmann and Poe, FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN is one of horror and fantasy literature's best hidden secrets. His astonishingly original forays into speculative fiction include an army of possessed Christmas dolls, the sudden and short-lived manifestation of an invisible monster, a disappearing room possessed by cannibal spirits, a murderous scientist's discovery of a microscopic woman in a drop of water, a child's symbiotic relationship to a grave, and a haunted gallows-tree. BEFORE succumbing to the insanity that ravaged his later life, GUY DE MAUPASSANT established a reputation as France's preeminent short story writer, an artist whose cynical and macabre visions paralleled those of Hoffmann and Poe, and directly influenced those of Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, and H.P. Lovecraft. His stories are nightmarescapes of psychopathy, corruption, and decadence, featuring a serial-killer judge, a maddening episode of cabin fever (which influenced The Shinning), a gruesome discovery during a night on the river, the inexplicable exodus of a man's walking furniture, the famous invisible vampire, the Horla, werewolves, haunted rooms, neglected ghosts, and vivid affairs of necrophilia. This unique and unrivalled edition of their best weird tales, fantasies, and mysteries includes critical introductions to each story, contextual information, and chilling illustrations that breathe life into their Gothic visions and bizarre fantasias.