Spurned lovers return from the grave to haunt their partners, ghost ships materialise on the sea, a bird’s eerie cry lures the unsuspecting to their deaths in a marsh… Welcome to the unsettling world of the French weird.

From German-inspired gothic tales to chilling contes cruels, the stories in this anthology follow the evolution of uncanny fiction in France from the post-revolutionary turmoil of the early nineteenth century, through World War Two and into the early 2000s. They’re tales influenced by, and often seeking to justify, civil and political unrest, populated by those forced to cope with constant change and rebellion, seeking some solace amongst the chaos.

Featuring strange stories from Gallic literary heavyweights Charles Nodier, Théophile Gautier and Guy de Maupassant, as well as unsettling tales from voices less well known outside France, such as Nathalie Henneberg, Claude Seignolle and Christine Renard, Danse Macabre is a beguiling concoction of fractured melodies that moves to its own unique rhythm.