Belgian Jean Re (1887 - 1964) - adventurer, smuggler, in the vast past, probably a conquistador. A lover of dubious entertainment related to pearl fishing and the capture of high-speed sailing ships. Among other things, he is a classic of “black science fiction”, an amazing inventor of plots, a cartographer of infernal landscapes. This novel is one of the most famous examples of the modern Gothic genre in Europe. Malpertuis is a work that does not shy away from Gothic excesses, a dark landscape painted with a rich imagination. A manuscript stolen from a monastery, an ancient stone house of a maritime-trading dynasty, inhabited by mysterious creatures - familiar elements of a Gothic novel. But something stranger is happening behind the walls of Malpertuis, when relatives gather in anticipation of the imminent death of Uncle Cassava. Without reducing the tension, the exciting and terrifying events of the novel carry the reader towards an apocalyptic denouement.