"Demons of the Night" is a trove of haunting fiction a gathering, for the first time in English, of the best nineteenth-century French fantastic tales. Featuring such authors as Balzac, Merimee, Dumas, Verne, and Maupassant, this book offers readers familiar with the works of Edgar Allan Poe and E. T. A. Hoffman some of the most memorable stories in the genre. With its aura of the uncanny and the supernatural, the fantastic tale is a vehicle for exploring forbidden themes and the dark, irrational side of the human psyche.
The anthology opens with "Smarra, or the Demons of the Night,"...