Histoires ténébreuses by Victor Joly, here translated as The Unknown Collaborator and Other Legendary Tales, was first published in Brussels by Auguste Schnee & Co. in 1857. It collects three novellas and a short story, all affiliated, albeit a trifle belatedly and more than a little ironically, to the Romantic Movements of France and Germany, fusing the two influences in a fashion that only a Belgian writer was likely to attempt, and thus producing a hybrid whose distinctiveness is particularly obvious in the first two stories in the collection, each of which makes a significant contribution to the rich tradition of Romantic satanic fantasies.