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{{Short description|Short story by Guy de Maupassant}}
{{this|the short story by Guy de Maupassant|the 1966 film based upon it|The Horla (film)}}
{{missing information|the story's development, themes, and reception|date=January 2018}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2016}}
{{Infobox short story
| name                = The Horla
| image               = Guy de Maupassant le Horla-edition1908.jpg
| caption             = Cover of the 1908 edition, illustrated by William Julian-Damazy
| author              = [[Guy de Maupassant]]
| title_orig          = Le Horla
| translator          = Jonathan Sturges
| country             = France
| language            = French
| series              = 
| genre               = [[Horror fiction|Horror]] [[short story]]
| pub_date            = 1887
| english_pub_date    = 1890
| wikisource          = The Horla
| native_wikisource   = 
| orig_lang_code      = 
}}
"'''The Horla'''" (French: "Le Horla") is an 1887 short [[horror fiction|horror]] story written in the style of a journal by the French writer [[Guy de Maupassant]], after an initial (much shorter) version published in the newspaper ''[[Gil Blas (periodical)|Gil Blas]]'', October 26, 1886.

The story has been cited as an inspiration for Lovecraft's  "[[The Call of Cthulhu]]", which also features an [[extraterrestrial life|extraterrestrial being]] who influences minds and who is destined to conquer humanity.<ref name="Joshi">S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz, "Call of Cthulhu, The", ''An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia,'' p. 28.</ref>

The word ''horla'' itself is not French, and is a [[neologism]]. [[Charlotte Mandell]], who has translated "The Horla" for publisher Melville House, suggests in an afterword that the word "horla" is a portmanteau of the French words ''hors'' ("outside"), and ''là'' ("there") and that "le horla" sounds like "the Outsider, the outer, the one Out There", and can be transliterally interpreted as "the 'what's out there'".<ref>{{cite book | last = de Maupassant | first = Guy | title = The Horla | publisher = Melville House | series = The Art of the Novella | date = 2005 | isbn = 978-0-9761407-4-0 }}</ref>

==Summary==
In the form of a journal, the narrator, an upper-class, unmarried, [[Bourgeoisie#France and Francophone countries|bourgeois]] man, conveys his troubled thoughts and feelings of anguish. This anguish occurs for four days after he sees a "superb three-mast" Brazilian ship and impulsively waves to it, unconsciously inviting the supernatural being aboard the boat to haunt his home.
[[File:Horla-Apparition.png|thumb|200px]]

All around him, he senses the presence of a being that he calls the "Horla". The torment that the Horla causes is first manifested physically: The narrator complains that he suffers from "an atrocious fever", and that he has trouble sleeping. He wakes up from nightmares with the chilling feeling that someone is watching him and "kneeling on [his] chest".

Throughout the short story, the main character's sanity, or rather, his feelings of alienation, are put into question as the Horla progressively dominates his thoughts. Initially, the narrator himself questions his sanity, exclaiming "Am I going mad?" after having found his glass of water empty, despite not having drunk from it. He later decides that he is not, in fact, going mad, since he is fully "conscious" of his "state" and that he could indeed "analyze it with the most complete lucidity." The presence of the Horla becomes more and more intolerable to the protagonist, as it is "watching ... looking at ... [and] dominating" him.

After reading about a large number of Brazilians who fled their homes, bemoaning the fact that "they are pursued, possessed, governed like human cattle by ... a species of vampire, which feeds on their life while they are asleep ... [and] drinks water", the narrator soon realizes the Horla was aboard the Brazilian three-mast boat that he had previously greeted. He feels so "lost" and "possessed" to the point that he is ready to kill the Horla. The narrator traps the Horla in a room and sets fire to the house, but forgets his servants, who perish in the fire. In the last lines of the story, faced with the persistence of the Horla's presence, he concludes suicide to be his only liberation.

==Background==
While the canonical version of the text is the 1887 novella, two earlier versions of the text demonstrate Maupassant's development of the central premise. ''Lettre d'un fou'', translated into English as "Letter of a Madman", was published in the 17th February 1885 edition of ''Gil Blas'', under the pseudonym 'Maufrigneuse'.<ref>{{cite web |last1=de Maupassant |first1=Guy |title=Letter of a Madman |url=https://www.thewhitereview.org/poetry/guy-de-maupassant-letter-of-a-madman/#:~:text=In%20the%20'Letter%20of%20a,now%20regarded%20as%20one%20of |website=The White Review |access-date=22 September 2024 |date=July 2011}}</ref> In the short story, the narrator writes a letter to a doctor describing his disillusionment with the world and his newfound ability to perceive a parallel invisible world. A later version of the text, also entitled ''Le Horla'', was published in the 26 October 1886 edition of the newspaper ''Gil Blas''. This version also sees the narrator impart his account to a group of doctors; this psychiatric context was dismissed from the final version of the text, which is written in the form of a journal.<ref name="Yampolsky" />

Another possible prototype for "The Horla" is Maupassant's short story "Lui?", translated into English as "Him?" and published in the 3rd July 1883 edition of ''Gil Blas''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Forrestier |first1=Louis |title=Contes et Nouvelle |date=1974 |publisher=Bibliothèque de la Pléiade |isbn=9782070108053}}</ref>
In the story, the narrator begins to see a figure who appears only when he is alone, and is only referred to as "He" or "Him". This figure inspires such terror in the protagonist that he is forced into marriage in order to resist being alone. These themes of alienation and a fear of solitude reoccur in "The Horla".<ref name="Rank">{{cite book |last1=Rank |first1=Otto |title=The Double: A Psychoanalytic Study |date=1971 |publisher=The University of North Carolina Press |location=North Carolina |pages=20–22 |isbn=978-1-4696-1021-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QJ-ri4xfEloC |access-date=22 September 2024}}</ref>

It is likely that Maupassant was inspired by his own interest in hypnosis and psychiatry in writing the short story, having frequently attended the lectures of noted neurologist Dr [[Jean-Martin Charcot]].<ref name="Yampolsky" /> The 1880s in France were a time of great public interest in [[hypnotism]], being used as it was both as a cure of illness and as an anaesthetic. While now dismissed as pseudoscientific, at the time the discipline was at the forefront of much medical experimentation. Simultaneously, however, hypnotism was the subject of much examples of theatre and showmanship, with many attending to witness outlandish and bizarre spectacles. This contrast in the popular perception of hypnotism between the scientific and the supernatural manifests, it has been argued, within "The Horla".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Trueman |first1=Liz |title=Progression / Regression: Hypnotism and the Superstitiuous in Maupassant's ''Le Horla'' |journal=Romance Notes |date=2018 |volume=58 |issue=1 |pages=5–15 |doi=10.1353/rmc.2018.0001 |url=https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/rmc.2018.0001 |access-date=22 September 2024|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

==Major themes==
The Horla's magnetic influence over the main character puts him in the same literary context as the double or [[doppelgänger]], a field which had previously been explored in [[Adelbert von Chamisso]]'s ''[[Peter Schlemihl]]'' (1814), [[Edgar Allan Poe]]'s "[[William Wilson (short story)|William Wilson]]" (1839), and [[Theophile Gautier]]'s ''[[Avatar (novel by Théophile Gautier)|Avatar]]'' (1856). However, while in the traditional literary form of the double the perceived threat is a physical one capable of autonomy, in "The Horla" the titular creature is instead elusive and invisible, acting as a manifestation of the main character's solitude and anxiety.<ref name="Yampolsky">{{cite book |last1=Yampolsky |first1=Eva |title=Identity Trouble: Fragmentation and Disillusionment in the Works of Guy de Maupassant |date=2017 |publisher=Peter Lang |location=New York |isbn=9781433121470 |pages=95–123 |url=https://archive.org/details/identitytroublei0000yamp/ |access-date=22 September 2024 |chapter=Chapter Four: Horlamil: A Figure of the Social Mass}}</ref> The Horla is characterised not as a physical being but as a "double-delusion", a means by which the narrator externalises his own depression into the physical world. It is no coincidence that he comes to the realisation that in order to destroy the Horla, he must destroy himself.<ref name="Rank" />

The ambiguity as to whether the eponymous Horla is an actual malign entity or a symptom of the narrator's mental illness is a key element of the short story's tension. As the reader is not presented with information external to the protagonist that confirms any of the events of the short story, they are forced to reconcile with the possibility that the [[Unreliable narrator|narrator is unreliable.]] Maupassant structures the short story in such a manner that the growing need for an implied reader to settle for an interpretation coincides with the vacillations of the story's protagonist; just as the narrator grows more and more mentally unstable, the ambiguity of what is occurring in the short story, and the corresponding uncertainty in a presumed reader, heightens.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Heller |first1=Terry |title=The Delights of Terror: An Aesthetics of the Tale of Terror |date=1987 |publisher=University of Illinois |location=Illinois, USA |isbn=025201412X |pages=95–100 |url=https://archive.org/details/delightsofterror0000hell |access-date=22 September 2024 |chapter=Chapter Six: The Pure Fantastic Tale of Terror}}</ref>

==Legacy==
{{cleanup rewrite|section=yes|date=January 2018}}

===Literature===
Reinterpretations of Maupassant's short story occur throughout horror fiction. In the short story "The Theater Upstairs" (1936) by [[Manly Wade Wellman]], the plot revolves around characters watching a film adaptation of "The Horla".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wellman |first1=Manly Wade |title=The Theater Upstairs |journal=Weird Tales |date=December 1936 |volume=28 |issue=5 |url=https://archive.org/details/WellmanManlyWadeWellmanInWeirdTales/page/n29/mode/2up?view=theater |access-date=28 September 2024}}</ref> "The Horla" is the inspiration for [[Robert Sheckley]]'s short story "The New Horla" (2000) in his collection ''[[Uncanny Tales (Sheckley)|Uncanny Tales]]''.<ref>{{cite web |title=Title: The New Horla |url=https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?92138 |website=The Internet Speculative Fiction Database |access-date=28 September 2024}}</ref> The American horror fiction writer [[H.P. Lovecraft]] is said to have been inspired by the story, with his 1928 short story "[[The Call of Cthulhu]]" having been particularly influenced by it.<ref name="Joshi"/> In his survey "[[Supernatural Horror in Literature]]" (1927), he provides his own interpretation of the story:

{{quote|Relating the advent in France of an [[invisibility|invisible]] being who lives on water and milk, [[Brainwashing|sways the minds of others]], and seems to be the vanguard of a horde of [[extraterrestrial life in popular culture|extra-terrestrial organisms]] arrived on earth to subjugate and overwhelm mankind, this tense narrative is perhaps without peer in its particular department.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lovecraft |first1=H.P. |title=Supernatural Horror in Literature |journal=The Recluse |date=1927 |volume=1 |pages=23–59 |url=https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/essays/shil.aspx}}</ref>}}

The figure of the Horla is a recurring character in Victorian [[pastiche]] fiction. In Wellman's novel ''[[Sherlock Holmes' War of the Worlds]]'' (1975), [[Sherlock Holmes]] suggests to [[Professor Challenger]] that the events of "The Horla" might actually be true.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wellman |first1=Manly Wade |last2=Wellman |first2=Wade |title=Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds |date=1975 |publisher=Warner Books |location=New York |pages=38–39 |url=https://archive.org/details/sherlockholmessw00well/ |access-date=28 September 2024}}</ref> Horlas are mentioned or featured in several stories from the ''[[Tales of the Shadowmen]]'' series, including one story where a Horla menaces occult detective [[Carnacki|Thomas Carnacki]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Legrand |first1=Oliver |editor1-last=Lofficier |editor1-first=J.M. |editor2-last=Lofficier |editor2-first=Randy |title=Tales of the Shadowmen Volume 10: Esprit de Corps |date=2013 |publisher=Black Coat Press |isbn=9781612272375 |pages=219–224 |chapter=The Last Tale}}</ref>

Kingsley Amis's first novel ''[[Lucky Jim]]'' (1954, chapter 6) describes Jim Dixon, a guest lecturer at a university, waking in a guestroom owned by the senior colleague whose good will he is depending on to continue in his job the next academic year, discovering he has fallen asleep drunk, and burned holes through blankets and sheets and on a bedside table. "Had he done this all to himself? Or had a wayfarer, a burglar, camped out in his room? Or was he the victim of some Horla fond of tobacco?"<ref>{{cite book |last1=Amis |first1=Kingsley |title=Lucky Jim |date=2002 |publisher=Penguin Books |location=London |isbn=0140186301 |pages=62 |url=https://archive.org/details/luckyjim00amis}}</ref>

The ''[[Bartimaeus Sequence]]'' (2003–2010) features {{not a typo|horlas}} as powerful spirits, who appear as shadowy apparitions that cause madness in humans similar to the titular Horla of the short story.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Stroud |first1=Jonathan |title=The Amulet of Samarkand |date=2003 |publisher=Doubleday |location=Great Britain |isbn=0552550299 |pages=254–256 |url=https://archive.org/details/amuletofsamarkan0000stro/ |access-date=28 September 2024}}</ref>

===Film and Television===
* The first cinematic adaptation was ''Zlatcha Notch'' (1914), translated as "The Terrible Night", by Russian film director [[Yevgeni Bauer]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Weinstock |first1=Jeffrey Andrew |title=The Ashgate Encyclopaedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters |date=2016 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=9781317044260 |page=336 |url=https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Ashgate_Encyclopedia_of_Literary_and/PHbeCwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0 |access-date=13 November 2024}}</ref>
* The movie ''[[Diary of a Madman (film)|Diary of a Madman]]'' (1963) is loosely based on "The Horla".<ref>{{cite web|last=Parkinson|first=David|title=Retro Review: Diary of a Madman – Vincent Price at his brutal best|url=https://www.readersdigest.co.uk/culture/film-tv/retro-review-diary-of-a-madman-vincent-price-at-his-brutal-best|work=[[Reader's Digest|Reader's Digest UK]]|access-date=June 13, 2021}}</ref>
* [[Tim Lucas]] has argued that "The Horla" is also an influence on Mario Bava's story "Telephone", featured in his film ''[[Black Sabbath (film)|Black Sabbath]]'' (1963).<ref>{{cite web|last=Talbot|first=Rob|title=An Englishman's Guide to Italian Gothic: Black Sabbath (1963)|url=https://diaboliquemagazine.com/an-englishmans-guide-to-italian-gothic-black-sabbath-1963/|work=Diabolique Magazine|date=August 26, 2018|access-date=June 13, 2021}}</ref>
* [[Jean-Daniel Pollet]] directed a film adaptation called ''[[The Horla (film)|Le Horla]]'' in 1966.<ref>{{Cite web |date=17 November 2010 |title=Yvan Attal haunted by "Le Horla" |url=https://www.allocine.fr/article/fichearticle_gen_carticle=18599424.html |access-date=14 September 2021 |website=[[AlloCiné]]}}</ref>
* The ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|Star Trek]]'' episode "[[Wolf in the Fold]]" (1967), scripted by [[Robert Bloch]], features an evil, primordial psychic entity that contains echoes of the Horla. <ref>{{cite book |last1=Coville |first1=Gary |last2=Lucanio |first2=Patrick |title=Jack the Ripper: His Life and Crimes in Popular Entertainment |date=2015 |publisher=McFarland Incorporated |location=United States |isbn=978-1476607375 |page=71 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=orvwCQAAQBAJ&dq=%22star+trek%22+wolf+in+the+fold+%22horla%22&pg=PA71 |access-date=28 September 2024}}</ref>
* ''Le Horla'', a 2023 television film directed by Marion Desseigne-Ravel and starring [[Bastien Bouillon]] in the primary role, first broadcast on [[Arte]] on 2 June 2023. Freely inspired by Maupassant's story, the film is transposed to the modern day.<ref>{{cite news|last=Vidal|first=Lucie|date=25 May 2023|title=Une version moderne du ''Horla'' sur Arte, entre Maupassant et confinement|url=https://www.lavoixdunord.fr/1331839/article/2023-05-25/une-version-moderne-du-horla-sur-arte-entre-maupassant-et-confinement|newspaper=[[La Voix du Nord]]|language=fr|access-date=6 November 2023}}</ref>

===Radio===
Maupassant's short story has had a number of different radio adaptations:
* "The Horla" was adapted for the syndicated radio program ''[[The Weird Circle]]'' in the 1940s.<ref name=Hand/>
* "The Horla" was dramatised on a 1st August 1943 episode of ''[[Inner Sanctum Mysteries]]'' starring [[Arnold Moss]].<ref name=Hand/>
* "The Horla" (1947) is episode 8 of [[Peter Lorre]]'s radio serial ''Mystery in the Air''.<ref>{{Citation|last=Chandler II|first=Dixon H.|contribution =Horror Programs|title =The Concise Encyclopedia of American Radio|page=372|publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]]|year=2010|isbn=9781135176846}}</ref> This has been considered one of Lorre's most powerful radio performances; in the end of the broadcast, Lorre breaks the boundaries of the narrative by stating the fact that the "real" Peter Lorre is still being menaced by the Horla while broadcasting on the radio.<ref name="Hand">{{cite book |last1=Hand |first1=Richard J. |title=Terror on the Air! Horror Radio in America, 1931-1952 |date=2012 |publisher=McFarland Incorporated Publishers |isbn=9780786491841 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kzqPM-UhN10C |access-date=8 October 2024}}</ref>
* ''The Hall of Fantasy'' radio show aired an episode on September 5, 1952, called "The Shadow People", which makes reference to the Horla.<ref name=Hand/>
* The ''[[CBS Radio Mystery Theater]]'' adapted the story for episode 49, which originally aired on February 22, 1974. It starred [[Paul Hecht]] as Maupassant.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Payton |first1=Gordon |last2=Grams Jr. |first2=Martin |title=The CBS Radio Mystery Theater: An Episode Guide and Handbook to Nine Years of Broadcasting, 1974-1982 |date=2015 |publisher=McFarland Incorporated Publishers |isbn=9780786492282 |pages=20–21 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8i6SCgAAQBAJ |access-date=8 October 2024}}</ref>

===Music===
* "The Horla" is the title of a song from the British [[Heavy metal music|heavy metal]] band [[Angel Witch]], appearing on their 2012 album ''[[As Above, So Below (Angel Witch album)|As Above, So Below]]''.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Rivadavia |first1=Eduardo |title=As Above, So Below review |url=https://www.allmusic.com/album/as-above-so-below-mw0002309549 |website=All Music |access-date=8 October 2024}}</ref>
* The concept album ''D'Après Le Horla De Maupassant'' by Canadian progressive rock band [[The Box (band)|The Box]] is based on "The Horla".<ref>{{cite web |title=The Box - A Timeless Inspiration |url=https://themusicexpress.ca/the-box-a-timeless-inspiration/ |website=The Music Express |access-date=8 October 2024 |date=2014}}</ref>
* The third track of French hip-hop artist [[Nekfeu]]'s debut album, ''Feu'', is entitled "Le Horla".<ref>{{cite web |last1=Delpech |first1=Margot |title=Nekfeu, de Jack London à John Fante |url=https://toutelaculture.com/musique/rap-hip-hop/nekfeu-de-jack-london-a-john-fante/ |website=Toute La Culture |access-date=8 October 2024 |date=27 April 2020}}</ref>

===Comics===
The story was adapted into the comic book ''Le Horla'' written by {{ill|Frédéric Bertocchini|fr}} and illustrated by Éric Puech. It was first published in 2012 but quickly withdrawn due to a conflict between the publisher and distributor. It was republished in 2022.<ref>{{cite news |last=Boone |first=Damien |date=7 January 2023 |url=https://www.actuabd.com/Le-Horla-Par-Frederic-Bertocchini-et-Eric-Puech-d-apres-Maupassant-Tartamudo |title=Le Horla - Par Frédéric Bertocchini et Eric Puech (d’après Maupassant) - Tartamudo |newspaper={{ill|ActuaBD|fr}} |language=fr |access-date=26 April 2025 }}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist |25em}}

==External links==
{{wikisource}}
* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/guy-de-maupassant/short-fiction/ernest-boyd_storm-jameson_jeffery-e-jeffery_lafcadio-hearn_m-walter-dunne_henry-c-olinger_albert-m-cohn-mcmaster_dora-knowlton-ranous_bigelow-brown-co-inc_francis-steegmuller|Display Name=Omnibus collection of Maupassant's short fiction|noitalics=true}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110216183054/http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=MauStor.sgm&images=images%2Fmodeng&data=%2Ftexts%2Fenglish%2Fmodeng%2Fparsed&tag=public&part=4&division=div1 Full English text of "The Horla" second version (University of Virginia Electronic Text Center)] (archived link)
* [http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/Horl.shtml Full English text of "The Horla" (from East of the Web)]
* [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10775 Full French text of "Le Horla" (Project Gutenberg)]
* [http://www.guydemaupassant.fr Free audiobook : Le Horla (in French)]
* [https://archive.org/download/MysteryintheAir/Mita_470821_ep08The_Horla.mp3 The Horla] starring [[Peter Lorre]], Mystery in the Air, NBC radio, August 21, 1947
* {{librivox book | title=The Horla | author=Guy de Maupassant}}
* {{isfdb series|35493|Le Horla}}

{{Guy de Maupassant}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Horla, The}}
[[Category:1887 short stories]]
[[Category:Short stories by Guy de Maupassant]]
[[Category:Horror short stories]]
[[Category:Fiction with unreliable narrators]]
[[Category:French short stories adapted into films]]
[[Category:Fictional diaries]]
[[Category:Works originally published in Gil Blas (periodical)]]
[[Category:French speculative fiction short stories]]