The second story collection from Jean Ray, the Belgian Edgar Allen
Poe," available in English for the first time
Footsteps in an abandoned holiday resort as the cold weather settles in;
a knock on the door of a hut in the middle of an isolated bog; a lane in
Rotterdam perceptible to only one inhabitant in the city. In Cruise of
Shadows, Jean Ray began to fully explore the trappings of the ghost
story to produce a new brand of horror tale: one that described the
lineaments of a universe adjacent to this one, in which objects sweat
hatred and fear, and where the individual must face the unknown in utter
isolation. First published in 1931, two years after he served his prison
sentence for embezzling funds for his literary magazine, Ray's second
story collection failed to find the success of his first one, Whiskey
Tales, but has emerged over the years as a key publication in the
Belgian School of the Strange. It has remained unavailable in its
integral form even in French until recently, however, though it contains
some of Ray's most anthologized and celebrated stories, including two of
his best known, "The Mainz Psalter" and "The Shadowy Alley." This is the
book's first English translation, and the second of the volumes of Ray's
books to be published by Wakefield Press.
Alternately referred to as the "Belgian Poe" and the "Flemish Jack
London," Jean Ray (1887-1964) delivered tales of horror under the
stylistic influence of his most cherished authors, Charles Dickens and
Geoffrey Chaucer. A pivotal figure in what has come to be known as the
"Belgian School of the Strange," Ray authored some 6,500 texts in his
lifetime.
