Maurice Level (29 August 1875 – 15 April 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
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
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 have been translated into American newspapers since 1903, notably his well-known tale "The Debt-Collector" (at least eight different translations). Between 1917 and 1919 the literary editor of the ''
New York Tribune
The ''New-York Tribune'' was an American newspaper founded in 1841 by editor Horace Greeley. It bore the moniker ''New-York Daily Tribune'' from 1842 to 1866 before returning to its original name. From the 1840s through the 1860s it was the domi ...
'',
William L. McPherson (1865-1930), translated seventeen war tales (three of them anonymously), seven of them being collected in ''Tales of Wartime France'' (1918). In 1920, English journalist, editor and publisher
Alys Eyre Macklin (ca. 1875-1929) arranged a treaty with Level to be his official literary agent for all English-language countries ., and translated a selection of 26 tales as ''Crises, Tales of Mystery and Horror'' (1920). Nine of them have been first published by ''
Hearst's'' Magazine in New York in 1919-1920. Some other tales appeared later in various newspapers or magazines in England or in the USA, such as ''Pan'' (London), or in the well-known pulp magazine ''
Weird Tales
''Weird Tales'' is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine founded by J. C. Henneberger and J. M. Lansinger in late 1922. The first issue, dated March 1923, appeared on newsstands February 18. The first editor, Edwin Baird, prin ...
''.
[Stefan R. Dziemianowicz, "Introduction", to ''100 Wild Little Weird Tales'',edited by Robert Weinberg, Dziemianowicz and ]Martin H. Greenberg
Martin Harry Greenberg (March 1, 1941 – June 25, 2011) was an American academic and anthologist in many genres, including mysteries and horror, but especially in speculative fiction. In all, he compiled 1,298 anthologies and commissioned ov ...
, Barnes and Noble, 1994 (pp. xvii-xix). .
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
The conte cruel is, as ''The A to Z of Fantasy Literature'' by Brian Stableford states, a "short-story genre that takes its name from an 1883 collection by Villiers de l'Isle-Adam", although previous examples had been provided by such writers as Ed ...
'', 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".
Thanks to Lovecraft, Maurice Level has been recognized in the United States and also in Japan as a little master of the horrible, when he was forgotten in his own country, France during the major part of the 20th century. He was still in print in both these countries in the years 2000. Since 2017, various new editions of his works have been reissued in France, with new critical material.
Selected works in French
*L'épouvante: Roman (1908) novel, translated as Terror (newspaper serial, US, 1908–09) The Grip of Fear (UK, 1909; US, 1911)
*Les Portes de l'Enfer (1910) short stories
*Les Oiseaux de nuit (1913) short stories
*Mado ou les mille joies du ménage (1914) humorous sketches
*Vivre pour la patrie (1917) novel
*L'Alouette: Roman (1918)
*Mado ou la Guerre à Paris (1919) humorous sketches
*Le Manteau d'arlequin: Roman (1919)
*Barrabas: Roman (1920)
*L'Ombre: Roman (1921) Novel translated as The Shadow (UK, 1923) Those who return (US, 1923)
*Le Crime: Roman (1921)
*Au pays du Tendre (1921)
*Les morts étranges (1921) short stories
*L'Île sans nom (1922)
*L'Ame de minuit (serial, 1923 ; first book publication in 2017, Lulu.com, )
*La Cité des voleurs: Roman (1924)
*Le Marchand de secrets (1928)
*L'Egnime de Bellavista (1928) prequel to Le Marchand de secrets
*Contes du Matin 1921-1924, sous la direction littéraire de Colette, preface by Jean-Luc Buard, La Bibliothèque Maurice Level/The International Maurice Level Library, 2017 ()
*Contes de guerre 1914-1922, edited by Jean-Luc Buard, AARP/Centre Rocambole/Encrage, 2017 ()
*Un maniaque et autres contes de l'Auto, 1904-1910, preface by Jean-Luc Buard, "La Bibliothèque Maurice Level"/Lulu.com, 2018 ()
Selected works in English
*The Grip of Fear (1909)
*Crises: Tales of Mystery and Horror (UK, 1920) 26 short stories translated by
Alys Eyre Macklin
**a.k.a. Tales of Mystery and Horror (US, 1920)
**a.k.a. Grand Guignol Stories (UK, 1922)
*Those Who Return (1923) translated by Bérengère Drillien
*Stories of Fear and Fascination: The Fiction of Maurice Level (2007) edited by John Robert Colombo with appreciations by Philippe Gontier,
Battered Silicon Dispatch Box
The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box (BSDB) is an independent, Canadian literary publisher, founded in 1993 by George A. Vanderburgh. Based in Shelburne, Ontario, and in Sauk City, Wisconsin, the company is headed by George Vanderburgh.
The press i ...
.
*Thirty Hours with a Corpse, And Other Tales of the Grand Guignol (2016) edited and introduced by S.T. Joshi. (Dover Publications, 2016)
*Crises, vol. 1: Tales of Mystery and Horror and Ten Other Uncollected Short Stories, Bordeaux, Mad Sheep, 2017, 232 p. (), with afterword "Alys Eyre Macklin, Maurice Level's English Friend and Translator" by Jean-Luc Buard. New enlarged and illustrated edition of 1920 collection
Notes
External links
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Two plays by Maurice Level on Great War Theatre
{{DEFAULTSORT:Level, Maurice
French horror writers
1875 births
1926 deaths
Place of birth missing
Place of death missing
French male writers
French male short story writers
French short story writers