Maurice Level

Portrait of Maurice Level

Maurice Level (August 29, 1875 – April 15, 1926) was a French writer of fiction and drama who specialized in short stories of the macabre which were printed regularly in the columns of Paris newspapers and sometimes staged by le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol, the repertory company in Paris's Pigalle district devoted to melodramatic productions which emphasized blood and gore.

Many of Level's stories were translated into English in the magazine Weird Tales.[1]

H. P. Lovecraft observed of Level's fiction in his essay Supernatural Horror in Literature (1927): "This type, however, is less a part of the weird tradition than a class peculiar to itself — the so-called conte cruel, in which the wrenching of the emotions is accomplished through dramatic tantalizations, frustrations and gruesome physical horrors". Critic Philippe Gontier wrote: "We can only admire, now almost one hundred years later, the great artistry with which Maurice Level fabricated his plots, with what care he fashioned all the details of their unfolding and how with a master's hand he managed the building of suspense".

Selected works in French

Selected works in English

Notes

  1. ↑ Stefan R. Dziemianowicz, "Introduction", to 100 Wild Little Weird Tales,edited by Robert Weinberg, Dziemianowicz and Martin H. Greenberg, Barnes and Noble, 1994 (pp. xvii-xix). ISBN 1-56619-557-8 .

External links

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