Short stories
The Horla
Le Horla
Guy de Maupassant · 1887
Opening lines
8 mai.—Quelle journée admirable! J'ai passé toute la matinée étendu sur l'herbe, devant ma maison, sous l'énorme platane qui la couvre, l'abrite et l'ombrage tout entière.
8 May. What a wonderful day! I spent the whole morning lying on the grass in front of my house, under the enormous plane tree that covers, shelters and shades it entirely.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
A diary kept from 8 May to 10 September by a man who lives alone in his house on the banks of the Seine, near Rouen. On the first day, he salutes a superb Brazilian three-master sailing up the river. He then falls ill for no reason, sleeps badly, finds his carafe emptied in the morning though he has not drunk from it, and sees a rose pick itself. He comes to believe he is inhabited by an invisible being, to which he gives a name: the Horla.
Context
The story went through three states: Lettre d'un fou, published in Gil Blas on 17 February 1885 under a pseudonym; a first version of Le Horla, in the same newspaper on 26 October 1886; and finally the definitive version, in diary form, which gives its title to the collection published by Ollendorff in 1887. These successive forms attest to patient work of composition, long mistakenly confused with a document on the author's illness.
Who it is for
A short narrative, in dated entries, which can be read in a single sitting; the 1886 version can be read afterwards.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as a high point of French fantastic fiction, it was translated into English by Charlotte Mandell for Melville House.