The Horla

About The Horla

The dated entries let certainty fluctuate from one observation to the next. The narrator's attempts at experiment make the account more troubling because method and fear reinforce each other. Questions of suggestion, illness, and an external being remain entangled in a voice determined to establish what is happening to its own will.

Reading focus

Read a diary of mounting dread whose observations and experiments continually blur the boundary between supernatural invasion and unstable perception.

This reading edition contains 9,841 words in 1 original section. Read the text online with adjustable type and three colour themes, or keep a printable PDF.

Author: Guy de Maupassant. Language: English. Reading edition: 28 October 2026.

Opening excerpt

MAY 8. What a lovely day! I have spent all the morning lying on the grass in front of my house, under the enormous plantain tree which covers and shades and shelters the whole of it. I like this part of the country; I am fond of living here because I am attached to it by deep roots, the profound and delicate roots which attach a man to the soil on which his ancestors were born and died, to their traditions, their usages, their food, the local expressions, the peculiar language of the peasants, the smell of the soil, the hamlets, and to the atmosphere itself.

Read the complete opening section

Reading & download help

Edition details and corrections.