Overview

Hanns Heinz Ewers (1871-1943) was a German actor, poet, philosopher, fantasist, and occult provocateur best known for his decadent horror fiction. In 1908, he conjured ""The Spider,"" a chilling masterwork of psychological unraveling and compulsive entrapment. Set in a dim Parisian hotel room plagued by a string of ritualistic suicides, the story unfolds through the journal of a medical student whose rational inquiry slowly gives way to obsession. Across the street, a silent woman appears at her window, and her presence begins to weave into his thoughts as the boundary between watcher and watched quietly dissolves. Here, unseen forces seduce and ensnare, and madness arrives not with a scream but with silence, symmetry, and the slow tightening of a metaphysical web.

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Reviews

""The following symbolic tale is from the pen of Hanns Heinz Ewers-the Edgar Allan Poe of Germany and one of the most notable authors writing in the German language. His fantastic imagination is perhaps best seen in the following story-unique, repelling, yet irresistible."" -The International ""If you like the weirdly horrible, read 'The Spider' by Hanns Heinz Ewers."" -The Springfield News-Sun "" . . . themes that would have warmed the heart of a Poe or Bierce. Take, for instance, Hannz Heinz Ewers' 'The Spider.' In this short-story the reader is treated to 15 minutes of chilled suspense that he will remember a long, long time."" -The Buffalo Times ""A tale as terrible as Edgar Allan Poe's most ghastly story."" -The Fatherland ""In the present generation German horror-fiction is most notably represented by Hanns Heinz Ewers, who brings to bear on his dark conceptions an effective knowledge of modern psychology . . . short stories like 'The Spider' contain distinctive qualities which raise them to a classic level."" -H.P. Lovecraft ""Ewers' horror is more utter than Poe's, both in atmosphere and in incident."" -Walter F. Kohn, The New Republic ""Of Ewers's short horror stories, the most famous is 'The Spider, ' a splendid tale that presents . . . a narrative of spellbinding intensity. Ewers was fond of femme fatale creations, and in 'The Spider' he gives us one of the most nightmarish and original evil females in literature."" -Jack Sullivan, Horror Literature

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