Guy de Maupassant, thoughts?

[Fried Egg]

I have heard it said that Guy de Maupassant wrote some great horror but I know not what to look for. Are there good novels or collections as a place to start with his work?

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by Fried Egg

I have heard it said that Guy de Maupassant wrote some great horror but I know not what to look for. Are there good novels or collections as a place to start with his work?

Damn...you've sent me into a tail-spin here. I thought 'surely I have something in my library by Maupassant?'...but no. At least I've not checked my anthologies section yet but nothing with him as the single contributor. I'm inspired to do some research on him now and find out more, sorry I can't add to your question FE....

[Chaoticheart]

Check out the short story "The Horla". It's definitely one of his best, and to my knowledge can be found in most of the Maupassant anthologies.

[Fried Egg]

I realise he wrote a lot of non horror, but is there a collection out there that collects his horror together?

[J-Sun]

Don't know the answer to that, but definitely get something. I don't currently have anything of him but, when I was a teenager, I read a collection of his. I don't remember thinking of the collection as a whole as genre of any kind but, nonetheless, I recall it favorably and I think it was he who inspired me to adopt a radically different style when I attempted a fantasy narrated from the POV of a 19th century Frenchman. (Not a good move for a teenaged 20th century American SF fan but it seemed like something fun to try. Fortunately, I never got more than a few pages.)

-- Found this at the ISFDB: looks like three horror collections.

[RJM Corbet]

Originally Posted by Fried Egg

I have heard it said that Guy de Maupassant wrote some great horror but I know not what to look for. Are there good novels or collections as a place to start with his work?

Any collection of his short stories. I believe his novels were not so great, and I don't know about horror, but he's a writer I don't think you'll ever forget. You can pick up Guy de Maupassant collections in those old orange Penguin paperbacks in any 2nd hand bookshop. There's one called 'Boule de Suif' (Ball of Dough) and other stories. I won't give you any spoilers...

[GOLLUM]

I'm getting a collection of his short stories this weekend. No idea how many are 'pure' supernatural in nature but he's a significant figure in World literature and I would like to get a sample of his art.

Here is a link I fonud that contains quite a few of Maupassant's short stories online. I know you are not a big online reader F.E. but you may wish to read some of these to see if Maupassant is your cup of tea or not?

May or may not add to J-Sun's link?

http://www.readbookonline.net/stories/Maupassant/19/

Cheers.

[Fried Egg]

Well thanks for all the useful links and advice. I'll mull on it and report back here when I eventually decide upon a course of action.

[j. d. worthington]

There are actually a couple of collections you can look for, though I'm not sure any of the following are still in print:

Tales of Supernatural Terror (Pan Books, 1972)
The Dark Side: Tales of Terror and the Supernatural (Carroll & Graf, 1989)

Both are edited by Arnold Kellett; the second has a much more extensive collection, including many of his stories of suspense and (non-supernatural) terror; it also features a preface by Ramsey Campbell....

[Fried Egg]

Thanks for those suggestions J.D., much appreciated.

[j. d. worthington]

You're most welcome. "The Horla" is probably his best-known tale of the weird, but he wrote some very powerful pieces beside.

I don't know if you've read HPL's essay, "Supernatural Horror in Literature", but his section on Maupassant mentions many of the best....

[Fried Egg]

I've started reading the collection: "Tales of Supernatural Terror".

Pretty good so far but the story that has really stuck out was "On the River".

It is also interesting that the stories are almost always a narrative within a narrative. They usually start by someone announcing they are going to tell a story before telling it.

[j. d. worthington]

Yes, "On the River" is a very powerful and disturbing piece where the atmosphere indicates what is going on without ever giving quite enough for the reader to know what it is until that final revelation... very good at allowing the reader to feel precisely as the figure in the story must feel....

[Fried Egg]

I just read "The Horla". A classic case of ambiguity over whether the protagonist was just insane or truly possessed by this strange, invisible, alien being.

[Connavar]

Ah shame for me i could have read "The Horla" when i re-read Carmilla för my lit class. It was selected along with Carmilla in The Dracula book of Classic Vampire Stories.

I wondered because i thought i know this Guy M wrote some good horror and is seen as a master of short story.