These tales of supernatural terror by French authorGuy de Maupassant(1850–1893), master of the short story, were selected and translated by Arnold Kellett, and published byPan Booksin 1972. The cover art is byJosh Kirby, depicting the protagonist of the first story,La Main d’écorché(The Hand). The suffocatingly narrow typeface to go with it isRubens. Its diagonal terminals nicely echo the fingernails.
This typography communicates claustrophobic literary menace — the kind of restrained, intellectual horror that builds through psychological tension rather than gore. The suffocatingly narrow Rubens creates an atmosphere of constriction and unease, while News Gothic provides editorial credibility, positioning this as serious literary horror rather than pulp sensationalism.
Rubens' extremely condensed letterforms and sharp diagonal terminals create visual tension that mirrors the psychological claustrophobia of Maupassant's supernatural tales. The font's narrow character width forces letters into uncomfortable proximity, while its angular terminals echo the story's fingernail imagery. News Gothic's clean, authoritative structure grounds the design with editorial respectability, preventing the horror elements from becoming campy.
The pairing creates a hierarchy of unease — News Gothic establishes literary authority and credibility, while Rubens delivers the visceral impact. This tension between editorial restraint and gothic compression mirrors Maupassant's own writing style: sophisticated prose containing disturbing psychological depths. The fonts work together to signal "serious horror literature" rather than genre fiction.