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The Last Canterbury Tales
A window in the night is a terror. I have known people who went crazy just waiting for the nightmare being to emerge from the darkness and press its mortal face to the panes.
After 600 years, Geoffrey Chaucer and his fourteenth-century pilgrims overcome space and time to return to the Tabard Inn in Southwark, freshly cleansed of their sins, to resume the literary work left unfinished so long before. This time it is a new cast of storytellers picking up where the others had left off—a motley crew that includes a Prioress with a taste for executions, a sailor scarred by a filthy pinkness, a Mr. Mayeux who is also Uriah Chickenhead, and a madman who once made the mistake of asking after the Uhu. Among them is also a new listener: Tobias Weep, secretary of the Upper Thames Book Club, who has stumbled onto their impossible gathering, pinned to his chair by the impossible weight of a talking cat on his lap, who is none other than E. T. A. Hoffmann’s tomcat Murr.
Drawing on the lineage of British Gothic fiction, German Romanticism, and—with such character names as Mistress Squeak, Dick Wallet, Teddy Ruddle, and old Mr. Pankeydrop—Dickensian humor, Ray spins a series of tales that embody his own distinct mixture of weird Catholic mythology and cosmic horror. The Last Canterbury Tales, first published in French in 1944, makes no pretense of finishing Chaucer’s masterpiece but instead works toward a denouement of its own that reveals an unexpected act of storytelling underpinning this collection.
After 600 years, Geoffrey Chaucer and his fourteenth-century pilgrims overcome space and time to return to the Tabard Inn in Southwark, freshly cleansed of their sins, to resume the literary work left unfinished so long before. This time it is a new cast of storytellers picking up where the others had left off—a motley crew that includes a Prioress with a taste for executions, a sailor scarred by a filthy pinkness, a Mr. Mayeux who is also Uriah Chickenhead, and a madman who once made the mistake of asking after the Uhu. Among them is also a new listener: Tobias Weep, secretary of the Upper Thames Book Club, who has stumbled onto their impossible gathering, pinned to his chair by the impossible weight of a talking cat on his lap, who is none other than E. T. A. Hoffmann’s tomcat Murr.
Drawing on the lineage of British Gothic fiction, German Romanticism, and—with such character names as Mistress Squeak, Dick Wallet, Teddy Ruddle, and old Mr. Pankeydrop—Dickensian humor, Ray spins a series of tales that embody his own distinct mixture of weird Catholic mythology and cosmic horror. The Last Canterbury Tales, first published in French in 1944, makes no pretense of finishing Chaucer’s masterpiece but instead works toward a denouement of its own that reveals an unexpected act of storytelling underpinning this collection.
168 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
About the author
Jean Ray
281 books121 followersRaymundus Joannes de Kremer was a Flemish Belgian writer who used the pen names John Flanders and Jean Ray. He wrote both in Dutch and French.
He was born in Ghent, his father a minor port official, his mother the director of a girls' school. Ray was a fairly successful student but failed to complete his university studies, and from 1910 to 1919 he worked in clerical jobs in the city administration.
By the early 1920s he had joined the editorial team of the Journal de Gand. Later he also joined the monthly L'Ami du Livre. His first book, Les Contes du Whisky, a collection of fantastic and uncanny stories, was published during 1925.
During 1926 he was charged with embezzlement and sentenced to six years in prison, but served only two years. During his imprisonment he wrote two of his best-known long stories, The Shadowy Street and The Mainz Psalter. From the time of his release in 1929 until the outbreak of the Second World War, he wrote virtually non-stop.
Between 1933 and 1940, he produced over a hundred tales in a series of detective stories, The Adventures of Harry Dickson, the American Sherlock Holmes. He had been hired to translate a series from the German, but he found the stories so bad that he suggested to his Amsterdam publisher that he should re-write them instead. The publisher agreed, provided only that each story be about the same length as the original, and match the book's cover illustration. The Harry Dickson stories are admired by the film director Alain Resnais among others. During the winter of 1959-1960 Resnais met with Ray in the hope of making a film based on the Harry Dickson character, but nothing came of the project.
During the Second World War Ray's prodigious output slowed, but he was able to publish his best works in French, under the name Jean Ray: Le Grand Nocturne (1942), La Cité de l'Indicible Peur, also adapted into a film starring Bourvil, Malpertuis, Les Cercles de L'Epouvante (all 1943), Les Derniers Contes de Canterbury (1944) and Le Livre des Fantômes (1947).
After the war he was again reduced to hackwork, writing comic-strip scenarios by the name of John Flanders. He was rescued from obscurity by Raymond Queneau and Roland Stragliati, whose influence got Malpertuis reprinted in French during 1956.
A few weeks before his death, he wrote his own mock epitaph in a letter to his friend Albert van Hageland: Ci gît Jean Ray/homme sinistre/qui ne fut rien/pas même ministre ("Here lies Jean Ray/A man sinister/who was nothing/not even a minister").
He was born in Ghent, his father a minor port official, his mother the director of a girls' school. Ray was a fairly successful student but failed to complete his university studies, and from 1910 to 1919 he worked in clerical jobs in the city administration.
By the early 1920s he had joined the editorial team of the Journal de Gand. Later he also joined the monthly L'Ami du Livre. His first book, Les Contes du Whisky, a collection of fantastic and uncanny stories, was published during 1925.
During 1926 he was charged with embezzlement and sentenced to six years in prison, but served only two years. During his imprisonment he wrote two of his best-known long stories, The Shadowy Street and The Mainz Psalter. From the time of his release in 1929 until the outbreak of the Second World War, he wrote virtually non-stop.
Between 1933 and 1940, he produced over a hundred tales in a series of detective stories, The Adventures of Harry Dickson, the American Sherlock Holmes. He had been hired to translate a series from the German, but he found the stories so bad that he suggested to his Amsterdam publisher that he should re-write them instead. The publisher agreed, provided only that each story be about the same length as the original, and match the book's cover illustration. The Harry Dickson stories are admired by the film director Alain Resnais among others. During the winter of 1959-1960 Resnais met with Ray in the hope of making a film based on the Harry Dickson character, but nothing came of the project.
During the Second World War Ray's prodigious output slowed, but he was able to publish his best works in French, under the name Jean Ray: Le Grand Nocturne (1942), La Cité de l'Indicible Peur, also adapted into a film starring Bourvil, Malpertuis, Les Cercles de L'Epouvante (all 1943), Les Derniers Contes de Canterbury (1944) and Le Livre des Fantômes (1947).
After the war he was again reduced to hackwork, writing comic-strip scenarios by the name of John Flanders. He was rescued from obscurity by Raymond Queneau and Roland Stragliati, whose influence got Malpertuis reprinted in French during 1956.
A few weeks before his death, he wrote his own mock epitaph in a letter to his friend Albert van Hageland: Ci gît Jean Ray/homme sinistre/qui ne fut rien/pas même ministre ("Here lies Jean Ray/A man sinister/who was nothing/not even a minister").
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 20, 2026
"You don't understand; that's all right; if it were otherwise, your knowledge would cause the stars to shudder with terror."
The Canterbury Tales are back with a pulpy cosmic horror remix. The framing device had cool payoff, and the stories The Pink Terror and The Uhu are great pieces of old-school Weird.
The Canterbury Tales are back with a pulpy cosmic horror remix. The framing device had cool payoff, and the stories The Pink Terror and The Uhu are great pieces of old-school Weird.
October 11, 2026
Jean Ray other masterpiece an almost modernist or postmodern gothic horror novel that pulls in elements of writers like M.R James, H.P Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe but also Charles Dickens, Chaucer and Marguerite de Navarre.
December 22, 2014
¡Muy bueno para los que gustan de las historias de terror! En realidad leí un libro llamado "obras escogidas" de Jean Ray. Los 25 mejores relatos negros y fantásticos. Los últimos cuentos de Canterbury.
Pero como no lo encontré idéntico, pues marqué este.
Pero como no lo encontré idéntico, pues marqué este.
June 2, 2026
First my biggest thanks to the Translator here, Scott Nicolay, for providing me with a copy of this book. It's greatly appreciated.
Now for the book itself, it's quite weird. Not just in the Weird Fiction kind of way either (which this has plenty of too) but it's crazy meta-super-structure fragmented story telling format that twists and turns what is a classic style of literature into a gonzo kaleidoscope of horrors.
Indeed there are many moments here that strike the unnerving tone incredibly well. And Rey's use of language is consistently lush and evocative. But this is such a shotgun blast of ideas and images that it's hard to say it coheres into anything more than wild, and quite entertaining, experiment.
Now for the book itself, it's quite weird. Not just in the Weird Fiction kind of way either (which this has plenty of too) but it's crazy meta-super-structure fragmented story telling format that twists and turns what is a classic style of literature into a gonzo kaleidoscope of horrors.
Indeed there are many moments here that strike the unnerving tone incredibly well. And Rey's use of language is consistently lush and evocative. But this is such a shotgun blast of ideas and images that it's hard to say it coheres into anything more than wild, and quite entertaining, experiment.
August 21, 2015
Memorizei o nome de Jean Ray numa das sessões da tertúlia Sustos às Sextas, quando alguém, provavelmente o classicista António Monteiro, trouxe Malpertuis à baila. Por isso, ao deparar com esta edição amarelecida, nem pestanejei. Aconteceu numa destas tardes de verão, povoadas por hordes de turistas em Óbidos, onde aproveitei para vasculhar os alfarrábios da Livraria do Mercado em busca de preciosidades literárias. Algo mais difícil do que parece num espaço com um enorme acervo, mas muito pouco daquilo que desperta o olhar de leitores de ficção científica e fantástico. Mas não deixa de permitir colher algumas curiosidades intrigantes, como este livro de Ray. Que, diga-se, é uma delícia literária composta de curtos contos.
Inspirando-se nos contos homónimos de Chaucer, reúne um grupo peripatético de viandantes improváveis de várias eras que se cruzam numa noite escura, na taverna onde, seiscentos anos antes, os companheiros de viagem e de histórias de Chaucer tinham partido para Canterbury. Percebemos que estamos perante um livro muito especial quando é o próprio Chaucer a fazer as honras da antologia, confessando ao leitor que as distâncias temporais são quebradiças e fluídas. Leitor esse que chega à taverna pelas mãos do secretário de um clube literário de luminárias menores, cuja prodigiosa microscópica produção os leva a pertencer ao legado estabelecido postumamente por um milionário inglês com um peculiar sentido de humor.
Sentido de humor, de uma forma elegante e corrosiva mas também estranha e decadente, é uma das sensibilidades que caracterizam estes contos que se destacam especialmente por um apurado sentido do macabro, do cruel, do tétrico e do insólito. São pérolas literárias eruditas e decadentes do sangrento.
Que contos cruéis nos aguardam, prontos a saltar para nos surpreender de dentro das páginas amarelecidas? Temos restaurantes onde as iguarias têm proveniência canibal. Uma bruxa que se diverte a atormentar os carrascos no momento em que os cadafalsos de Tyburn entram em acção. Uma idólatra que encontra forma de sacrificar crianças a Baal na sua sala de estar. Um simpático carrasco de Tyburn que casa com uma mulher que tem uma segunda vida como assaltante de estradas. Um Falstaff irritado porque a memória literária recorda-o como bonacheirão e não pelos seus feitos militares. Um fantasma que se humaniza, para seu desespero. E muitas outras histórias de humor negro, de crueldade elegante, propiciadas por um ser que assumindo forma humana, é um Satã que se diverte.
Inspirando-se nos contos homónimos de Chaucer, reúne um grupo peripatético de viandantes improváveis de várias eras que se cruzam numa noite escura, na taverna onde, seiscentos anos antes, os companheiros de viagem e de histórias de Chaucer tinham partido para Canterbury. Percebemos que estamos perante um livro muito especial quando é o próprio Chaucer a fazer as honras da antologia, confessando ao leitor que as distâncias temporais são quebradiças e fluídas. Leitor esse que chega à taverna pelas mãos do secretário de um clube literário de luminárias menores, cuja prodigiosa microscópica produção os leva a pertencer ao legado estabelecido postumamente por um milionário inglês com um peculiar sentido de humor.
Sentido de humor, de uma forma elegante e corrosiva mas também estranha e decadente, é uma das sensibilidades que caracterizam estes contos que se destacam especialmente por um apurado sentido do macabro, do cruel, do tétrico e do insólito. São pérolas literárias eruditas e decadentes do sangrento.
Que contos cruéis nos aguardam, prontos a saltar para nos surpreender de dentro das páginas amarelecidas? Temos restaurantes onde as iguarias têm proveniência canibal. Uma bruxa que se diverte a atormentar os carrascos no momento em que os cadafalsos de Tyburn entram em acção. Uma idólatra que encontra forma de sacrificar crianças a Baal na sua sala de estar. Um simpático carrasco de Tyburn que casa com uma mulher que tem uma segunda vida como assaltante de estradas. Um Falstaff irritado porque a memória literária recorda-o como bonacheirão e não pelos seus feitos militares. Um fantasma que se humaniza, para seu desespero. E muitas outras histórias de humor negro, de crueldade elegante, propiciadas por um ser que assumindo forma humana, é um Satã que se diverte.
August 19, 2012
Ces contes raviront les amateurs d'histoires gothiques.
c'est très bien écrit, ça rappelle un peu Poe, un peu Lovecraft, mais avec bien d'autres choses encore, On y rencontre une prêtresse de Moloch, des sorcières, des pendus et un bourreau, des marins et toutes les horreurs qui rôdent sur la lande comme si Jean Ray avait été l'ancêtre de Neil Gaiman. Ha, et puis il y a un chat aussi, qui m'a fait penser à Béhémoth, le chat noir du "Maître et Marguerite". ce livre vaut son pesant d'étoiles.
c'est très bien écrit, ça rappelle un peu Poe, un peu Lovecraft, mais avec bien d'autres choses encore, On y rencontre une prêtresse de Moloch, des sorcières, des pendus et un bourreau, des marins et toutes les horreurs qui rôdent sur la lande comme si Jean Ray avait été l'ancêtre de Neil Gaiman. Ha, et puis il y a un chat aussi, qui m'a fait penser à Béhémoth, le chat noir du "Maître et Marguerite". ce livre vaut son pesant d'étoiles.
December 29, 2023
Un ensemble d’histoires assez noires. Je n’ai pas beaucoup aimé.
April 21, 2017
Une belle écriture. Le respect des canons du genre. Mais sans que cela m'ait passionné.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews