An extensive collection of “terrible” French prose provides a fairly broad panorama of Gothic literature. It opens with the repeatedly translated and published “The Devil in Love” by Jacques Cazotte, the same one who is famous for his prophecy about the horrors of the French Revolution, and ends with two short stories by Guy de Maupassant. Among the authors are both writers well known in Russia: Borel, Gautier, Gerard de Nerval, and completely unknown ones. Many stories are published for the first time. I would like to draw the readers' attention to two early works of Balzac, which are usually lost behind his monumental epics. The compiler of the book and the author of the introductory article is S. Zenkin, one of the largest experts on French literature in Russia today; and this can serve as a guarantee of the quality of the publication.

The collection includes the best “Gothic” works of French prose of the last century. Among the authors: J. Cazotte, S. A. Berthoud, C. Nodier, P. Borel, C. Rabu, O. de Balzac, J. de Nerval, T. Gautier, P. Mérimée, J. Barbet d'Aurevilly, J. Boucher de Pert, C. Vignon, O. Villiers de L'Isle-Adan, G. de Maupassant. The majority of the collection consists of texts translated into Russian for the first time.