March 2, 2008

Jean Ray, Malpertuis (and Presence du Futur)


I can't say much more than these two have said about Jean Ray's 20th century Gothic masterpiece Malpertuis: Giornale Nuovo and Michael Cisco.


In the intro to his 1998 translation of this 1943 novel, Iain White reports that: "In December of [1955, the year Ray died], due in large measure to the intervention of Raymond Queneau and Stragliati [Roland Stragliati, cineaste and writer], 'who have moved heaven and earth to rescue Malpertuis and indeed Jean Ray, from the obscurity of oblivion,' Malpertuis was republished in France by the leading firm Denoel, in their mass-market S. F. paperback series Presence du Futur."

Here's the cover of the Presence du Futur edition.


I just looked up the Presence du Futur series. Here are some of their covers (I stitched these together though they are not my scans):




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