The Gates of Hell

Maurice Level's The Gates of Hell (1910) is a collection of twenty-six stories originally published in 1910. The tales, in the tradition of the contes cruels, range in subject from a man who keeps a secret with devastating effects, to a maniac who finds thrills in witnessing violent accidents, to a blind peasant who purposely loses his eyesight, to a prostitute who sleeps with the person who executed her husband... These rich and carefully plotted stories ratchet up suspense, sentence by be...