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Circles of Dread
"I chalked circles onto the wall facing me. They are empty and black, but will not remain so. They are great portholes opening onto a world not yet born. Worlds that are born, like those that die, are full of dread."
Trapped within its own circular prison of the Occupation and severed from contact with Paris and other countries, Belgian publishing turned inward, and forgotten authors such as Jean Ray were given new leases on literary life. Embracing the influence of American pulp fiction, Ray’s short stories found a new audience in those dark years of World War II, and what would come to be known as the Belgian School of the Strange gave voice to a realm of fear and unease that blended fantasy with a Catholic heritage and a prosaic, distinctly bourgeois everyday.
Circles of Dread, Ray’s fourth short-story collection, was first published in 1943, the same year that saw the first appearance of his best-known work, the novel Malpertuis. This collection’s portholes onto sinister fantasy include such stories as 'The Marlyweck Cemetery', 'The Inn of the Specters', and 'The Story of the Wûkh'. Ray takes the reader from the quiet streets of Ghent to the scrambled streets of London to the Flinders river in Australia, with tales spun from such materials as the iron hand of Götz von Berlichingen, the black mirror of John Dee, a Moustiers ceramic plate, and the shifting, extra-dimensional menace of a predatory cemetery. All to illustrate, in the language of pulp fiction, that what constitutes dread is what lies outside our metaphysical prisons, some of which we may escape only at our own peril.
Jean Ray (1887–1964) is the best known of the multiple pseudonyms of Raymundus Joannes Maria de Kremer. Alternately referred to as the “Belgian Poe” and the “Flemish Jack London,” Ray delivered tales and novels of horror under the stylistic influence of his most cherished authors, Charles Dickens and Geoffrey Chaucer. A pivotal figure in the “Belgian School of the Strange,” Ray authored some 6,500 texts in his lifetime, not including his own biography, which remains shrouded in legend and fiction, much of it his own making. His alleged lives as an alcohol smuggler on Rum Row in the prohibition era, an executioner in Venice, a Chicago gangster, and hunter in remote jungles in fact covered over a more prosaic, albeit ruinous, existence as a manager of a literary magazine that led to a prison sentence, during which he wrote some of his most memorable tales of fantastical fear.
Trapped within its own circular prison of the Occupation and severed from contact with Paris and other countries, Belgian publishing turned inward, and forgotten authors such as Jean Ray were given new leases on literary life. Embracing the influence of American pulp fiction, Ray’s short stories found a new audience in those dark years of World War II, and what would come to be known as the Belgian School of the Strange gave voice to a realm of fear and unease that blended fantasy with a Catholic heritage and a prosaic, distinctly bourgeois everyday.
Circles of Dread, Ray’s fourth short-story collection, was first published in 1943, the same year that saw the first appearance of his best-known work, the novel Malpertuis. This collection’s portholes onto sinister fantasy include such stories as 'The Marlyweck Cemetery', 'The Inn of the Specters', and 'The Story of the Wûkh'. Ray takes the reader from the quiet streets of Ghent to the scrambled streets of London to the Flinders river in Australia, with tales spun from such materials as the iron hand of Götz von Berlichingen, the black mirror of John Dee, a Moustiers ceramic plate, and the shifting, extra-dimensional menace of a predatory cemetery. All to illustrate, in the language of pulp fiction, that what constitutes dread is what lies outside our metaphysical prisons, some of which we may escape only at our own peril.
Jean Ray (1887–1964) is the best known of the multiple pseudonyms of Raymundus Joannes Maria de Kremer. Alternately referred to as the “Belgian Poe” and the “Flemish Jack London,” Ray delivered tales and novels of horror under the stylistic influence of his most cherished authors, Charles Dickens and Geoffrey Chaucer. A pivotal figure in the “Belgian School of the Strange,” Ray authored some 6,500 texts in his lifetime, not including his own biography, which remains shrouded in legend and fiction, much of it his own making. His alleged lives as an alcohol smuggler on Rum Row in the prohibition era, an executioner in Venice, a Chicago gangster, and hunter in remote jungles in fact covered over a more prosaic, albeit ruinous, existence as a manager of a literary magazine that led to a prison sentence, during which he wrote some of his most memorable tales of fantastical fear.
132 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1943
About the author
Jean Ray
278 books119 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 - 16 of 16 reviews
February 19, 2022
While none of the stories here quite match the extraordinary strangeness and frisson of his earlier novelettes "The Shadowy Street" (aka "The Gloomy Alley") and "The Mainz Psalter," I feel this 1943 collection as a whole is much more consistent than Ghouls in My Grave, the only volume of Jean Ray's short fiction I'd read prior to this. Other than "The Marlyweck Cemetery," which is most definitely weird and comes close to equaling those aforementioned masterpieces, these entries are more of your typical "ghostly tales" from the era, though masterfully executed, and very, very creepy. And that's good enough for me.
Cheers to Scott Nicolay for doing these translations, and to Wakefield Press for reissuing Ray's works so I don't have to learn Dutch or French. As an aside, I enjoyed "The Black Mirror" (the only story I've previously read) quite a bit more in this than I did when reading Ghouls in My Grave. I don't know if that's due to Nicolay's translation compared to Lowell Blair's, or if my mood was better suited this time around, but either way it makes me want to give some of those tales I was ambivalent about another go.
Cheers to Scott Nicolay for doing these translations, and to Wakefield Press for reissuing Ray's works so I don't have to learn Dutch or French. As an aside, I enjoyed "The Black Mirror" (the only story I've previously read) quite a bit more in this than I did when reading Ghouls in My Grave. I don't know if that's due to Nicolay's translation compared to Lowell Blair's, or if my mood was better suited this time around, but either way it makes me want to give some of those tales I was ambivalent about another go.
December 23, 2020
The benighted year that is 2020 has given us a great many things, almost all of them bad. But it has also given us not one but two collections-in-translation from the “Belgian Poe” himself, Jean Ray (actually one of the numerous pseudonyms of Raymundus Joannes Maria de Kremer) courtesy of translator Scott Nicolay, bringing the total of Nicolay’s translations of Ray’s work into English to four volumes, all available from Wakefield Press.
When writing about Cruise of Shadows, the second collection and, to this point, maybe the best, I said that Scott was doing the proverbial Lord’s work, and that remains true. In fact, enough can’t possibly be said about the translation job he does here, which goes far beyond translation and into the realm of annotation, providing extensive translator’s notes that fix historical precedent, explain unusual turns of phrase, and expound upon Ray’s many instances of wordplay and allusion.
The other thing that Scott does is to provide (also extensive) afterwords that help to fix the book in question not merely in history or in the timeline of Ray’s career, but as it relates to the specific field of weird fiction. As Scott rightly points out in the afterword of Circles of Dread, the latest translation and maybe my favorite to date, though we’ll get to that in a minute, the notion of weird fiction as a mode didn’t really exist yet at the time that Ray was writing.
Nevertheless, Scott identifies only two of the stories in Circles of Dread as being capital-W Weird, and, given that he’s the Ray scholar of the two of us, I’m certainly not going to argue with him. Ray’s undisputed masterpieces of the weird fiction mode are the two stories that anchored Cruise of Shadows, “The Gloomy Alley” and “The Mainz Psalter,” but some of his other tales, including “The Marlyweck Cemetery” in Circles of Dread, certainly deserve to rub shoulders with them.
But I said up above that this was maybe my favorite of the four Wakefield Press collections so far released, and that is because – regardless of the number of Weird tales contained herein or not – just about every story in Circles of Dread is a masterpiece of the gothic and macabre, and one that only Ray could have written.
Indeed, tales like “The Moustiers Plate” are so fanciful as to almost rub up against something like magical realism, while others, such as the inspiring “Hand of Gotz von Berlichingen” which opens the collection are nearly traditional ghost stories, but told in the always indirect way in which Ray specialized and which Scott calls “punching around corners” in his afterword.
Writing about Cruise of Shadows, I said that, “The majesty of Ray’s prose is in its ability to conjure – not a clear image of a thing, but a clear feeling of it.” That’s true here, as well, and while these stories (“Marlyweck Cemetery” notwithstanding) may be less Weird than those, they’re no less masterful, and I love a good ghost story, gothic tale, or supernatural yarn as much as any Weird fiction.
And these are about as good as they come.
“One can ask only so much of possessed alchemical objects.”
When writing about Cruise of Shadows, the second collection and, to this point, maybe the best, I said that Scott was doing the proverbial Lord’s work, and that remains true. In fact, enough can’t possibly be said about the translation job he does here, which goes far beyond translation and into the realm of annotation, providing extensive translator’s notes that fix historical precedent, explain unusual turns of phrase, and expound upon Ray’s many instances of wordplay and allusion.
The other thing that Scott does is to provide (also extensive) afterwords that help to fix the book in question not merely in history or in the timeline of Ray’s career, but as it relates to the specific field of weird fiction. As Scott rightly points out in the afterword of Circles of Dread, the latest translation and maybe my favorite to date, though we’ll get to that in a minute, the notion of weird fiction as a mode didn’t really exist yet at the time that Ray was writing.
Nevertheless, Scott identifies only two of the stories in Circles of Dread as being capital-W Weird, and, given that he’s the Ray scholar of the two of us, I’m certainly not going to argue with him. Ray’s undisputed masterpieces of the weird fiction mode are the two stories that anchored Cruise of Shadows, “The Gloomy Alley” and “The Mainz Psalter,” but some of his other tales, including “The Marlyweck Cemetery” in Circles of Dread, certainly deserve to rub shoulders with them.
But I said up above that this was maybe my favorite of the four Wakefield Press collections so far released, and that is because – regardless of the number of Weird tales contained herein or not – just about every story in Circles of Dread is a masterpiece of the gothic and macabre, and one that only Ray could have written.
Indeed, tales like “The Moustiers Plate” are so fanciful as to almost rub up against something like magical realism, while others, such as the inspiring “Hand of Gotz von Berlichingen” which opens the collection are nearly traditional ghost stories, but told in the always indirect way in which Ray specialized and which Scott calls “punching around corners” in his afterword.
Writing about Cruise of Shadows, I said that, “The majesty of Ray’s prose is in its ability to conjure – not a clear image of a thing, but a clear feeling of it.” That’s true here, as well, and while these stories (“Marlyweck Cemetery” notwithstanding) may be less Weird than those, they’re no less masterful, and I love a good ghost story, gothic tale, or supernatural yarn as much as any Weird fiction.
And these are about as good as they come.
“One can ask only so much of possessed alchemical objects.”
June 17, 2021
Another wildly uneven collection in this reissue series, as always admirably translated and annotated, but also begging the question, why couldn't Nicolay and Wakefield Press have simply released a "selected stories" instead of publishing such a mixed bag of great and mediocre tales. The best tales rank among the finest works of European weird fiction of the mid-twentieth century, so again, this is a worthwhile purchase, but be prepared for some less worthy inclusions.
November 2, 2025
some of the short stories are middling, but most are fantastic. The final two were some of the best Gothic horror material I have read in a long time. I look forward to reading more of Jean Ray's back catalogue of books.
Read
April 12, 2022Not always as Weird as his previous collections, but this is a solid collection of great horror short stories; no duds here!
Favorite stories are "The Hand of Götz von Berlichingen," "The Moustiers Plate," "The Marlyweck Cemetery," "The Story of the Wûlkh," and "The Black Mirror."
Favorite stories are "The Hand of Götz von Berlichingen," "The Moustiers Plate," "The Marlyweck Cemetery," "The Story of the Wûlkh," and "The Black Mirror."
April 9, 2024
You can't predict where these stories will go. Having 100 year old stories that feel fresh and dynamic is a real joy.
November 30, 2022
I ask her:
"Do your dolls talk?"
"They talk, run, play, and fight," she says.
"And your lead soldiers, do they move?"
"Sure! Before they die... because they are soldiers and made to die. You see how many have their heads cut off. They cut their necks when they fight with their sabers." ("Opening: The Circles")
I chalked circles on the wall facing me. They are empty and black, but will not remain so.
These are great portholes opening onto a world not yet born. Worlds that are born, like those that die, are filled with dread.
Soon, each of these round windows will frame a face contorted by the anguish of the unknown.
And so the stories that we tell ourselves are born, to satisfy our own fear as well as our own flesh. And, afterward, we pass on to others the bloody comforts of this barbaric and divine feast. ("Opening: The Circles")
My old and fierce city was draped that day in a cloak of fog and light rain. The water of heaven made the busy noise of mice on the green cotton fabric dome of the huge umbrella that I carried with arms extended above our heads.
We followed lugubrious streets that ran alongside the livid meadows of the launderers, where the streams were swollen with soapy and opaline water.
"To say," murmured my uncle, "that these cobblestones, which bruise our feet, sounded beneath the footsteps of the horses of Charles V and his loyal Götz von Berlichingen! Ah! ...where the towers have fallen into ash and dust, the flagstones remain; accept the lesson, my little one, contemplate how everything that stays near the ground has a long and hard life, and that which faces the glory of heaven, borders on death and oblivion." ("The Hand of Götz von Berlichingen")
"Incredible things can only be explained by things even more incredible." ("The Man Who Dared")
The jug of schiedam sounded hollow as a cellar slab.
"Mr. Hilmacher," I whispered, taking leave of him at the bottom of the stairs, under the tender gaze of the moon, "I am a strong spirit as you have noticed, but sincerely, between educated men, don't you think that the devil..."
"Sire," he said softly, and I thought I read an intense distress on his face, "Mr. Burgermeister, if it were only the devil..."
"If it it were only...?" I cried, genuinely frightened.
"Understand me well. Against him, I could draw up divine weapons: prayer, the eternal omnipotent presence of God himself. But against this, I have only pitiful weapons."
"Which ones?" I asked.
"My heart, Mr. Burgermeister, my poor human heart, miserable and a thousand times broken." ("The Man Who Dared")
"Do your dolls talk?"
"They talk, run, play, and fight," she says.
"And your lead soldiers, do they move?"
"Sure! Before they die... because they are soldiers and made to die. You see how many have their heads cut off. They cut their necks when they fight with their sabers." ("Opening: The Circles")
I chalked circles on the wall facing me. They are empty and black, but will not remain so.
These are great portholes opening onto a world not yet born. Worlds that are born, like those that die, are filled with dread.
Soon, each of these round windows will frame a face contorted by the anguish of the unknown.
And so the stories that we tell ourselves are born, to satisfy our own fear as well as our own flesh. And, afterward, we pass on to others the bloody comforts of this barbaric and divine feast. ("Opening: The Circles")
My old and fierce city was draped that day in a cloak of fog and light rain. The water of heaven made the busy noise of mice on the green cotton fabric dome of the huge umbrella that I carried with arms extended above our heads.
We followed lugubrious streets that ran alongside the livid meadows of the launderers, where the streams were swollen with soapy and opaline water.
"To say," murmured my uncle, "that these cobblestones, which bruise our feet, sounded beneath the footsteps of the horses of Charles V and his loyal Götz von Berlichingen! Ah! ...where the towers have fallen into ash and dust, the flagstones remain; accept the lesson, my little one, contemplate how everything that stays near the ground has a long and hard life, and that which faces the glory of heaven, borders on death and oblivion." ("The Hand of Götz von Berlichingen")
"Incredible things can only be explained by things even more incredible." ("The Man Who Dared")
The jug of schiedam sounded hollow as a cellar slab.
"Mr. Hilmacher," I whispered, taking leave of him at the bottom of the stairs, under the tender gaze of the moon, "I am a strong spirit as you have noticed, but sincerely, between educated men, don't you think that the devil..."
"Sire," he said softly, and I thought I read an intense distress on his face, "Mr. Burgermeister, if it were only the devil..."
"If it it were only...?" I cried, genuinely frightened.
"Understand me well. Against him, I could draw up divine weapons: prayer, the eternal omnipotent presence of God himself. But against this, I have only pitiful weapons."
"Which ones?" I asked.
"My heart, Mr. Burgermeister, my poor human heart, miserable and a thousand times broken." ("The Man Who Dared")
January 6, 2023
This Jean Ray short story collection doesn't have high points quite as high as those found in his earlier collection Cruise of Shadows, but it's more even overall, and manages not to feel repetitive even though the stories feature many of Ray's recurrent elements. I don't think a full-blown review is necessary since so many of my thoughts on this one echo my thoughts on Cruise of Shadows: Ray's writing is much better than you typically find in horror stories like these, the Wakefield Press edition of the book is excellent, and translator Scott Nicolay's notes and afterward are comprehensive and extremely well done. It's clear that translating Ray's work is more than just a job for Nicolay, it's the passion project of a professional that has the talent to do it right. For me the volume's highlights were The Hand of Götz von Berlichingen (slightly reminiscent of Malpertuis), The Man Who Dared (since how often do you have a horror story where ), and the heartfelt End: Beyond the Circles. Also, while it was pretty good in written form, I think The Story of the Wûlkh could make an amazing horror short film. Like Cruise of Shadows before it I give this one a 3.5/5, it's worth your time if you like well-aged horror short stories, though it's not as strong as Malpertuis. I'm very much looking forward to Wakefield Press publishing Ray's novel The City of Unspeakable Fear in June.
December 3, 2025
I could not get into these stories. Initially, they reminded me of Latin American magical realism writers of that era, which I like, except that Jean Ray writes horror. Overall, however, I struggled to follow the author's train of thought, and sometimes I wasn't even quite sure what was happening in each segment. Ray also has the habit of ending the story at its climax, creating a cliffhanger effect, but it feels rather jarring
March 2, 2023
This was a very disturbing book. No monsters under the bed or anything, it’s mostly human nature itself that, along with some other dark and menacing phenomena, lends itself to the lonely, desolate, upsetting aura of these stories. Multiple short stories in this slender volume.
September 11, 2023
Opening: The Circles ~ ★★★
The Hand of Götz von Berlichingen ~ ★★★
The Moustiers Plate ~ ★★★
The Marlyweck Cemetery ~ ★★★★
The Man Who Dared ~ ★★★
The Inn of the Specters ~ ★★★
The Story of the Wûlkh ~ ★★★
The Black Mirror ~ ★★★★
End: Beyond the Circles ~ ★★★
The Hand of Götz von Berlichingen ~ ★★★
The Moustiers Plate ~ ★★★
The Marlyweck Cemetery ~ ★★★★
The Man Who Dared ~ ★★★
The Inn of the Specters ~ ★★★
The Story of the Wûlkh ~ ★★★
The Black Mirror ~ ★★★★
End: Beyond the Circles ~ ★★★
December 18, 2021
These Ray collections are wonderful. Good weird fiction, in dense, slick, well-designed little volumes that feel so pleasing in the hand. Bravo to Wakefield Press.
February 14, 2022
An fantastic collection of Jean Ray short fiction
February 17, 2023
A really wonderful, but all too short, collection of weird and macabre tales.
July 25, 2025
One is more readable than the other. The translation might have something to do with it. My favorite one is 'The Black Mirror' (yes, better than the TV show).
Read
March 18, 2008Décidemment, les nouvelles de Jean Ray ne m’interpellent pas le moins du monde. Il n’y a d’épouvantable que l’ennui que sa lecture m’a procuré. Si le style est toujours aussi attrayant, le fond me laisse perplexe, les histoires sont d’une banalité déconcertante, sans aucun suspens, (mais peut-être que leur brièveté y est pour quelque chose). Je ne retrouve rien de ce que j’ai aimé dans Malpertuis, mais j’ai l’impression de relire Les contes du whisky. Je me rabattrai donc un jour prochain sur son autre roman, La cité de l’indicible peur.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews