Hell is a 1908

1908 in literature

The year 1908 in literature involved some significant new books.-New books:*Afawarq Gabra Iyasus - Libb Wolled Tārīk , the first novel in Amharic*Leonid Andreyev - The Seven Who Were Hanged...

 novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by Henri Barbusse

Henri Barbusse

Henri Barbusse was a French novelist and a member of the French Communist Party.-Life:...

, in which the unnamed narrator peers into a hole in the wall of his hotel room. From the other side, he witnesses lesbianism, adultery

Adultery

Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...

, incest

Incest

Incest is sexual intercourse between close relatives that is usually illegal in the jurisdiction where it takes place and/or is conventionally considered a taboo. The term may apply to sexual activities between: individuals of close "blood relationship"; members of the same household; step...

, and death. It is only when he feels he has uncovered all the secrets of life that he decides to leave the room for good. But, as he attempts to leave, he is overcome with backache and blindness.

Colin Wilson

Colin Wilson

Colin Henry Wilson is a prolific English writer who first came to prominence as a philosopher and novelist. Wilson has since written widely on true crime, mysticism and other topics. He prefers calling his philosophy new existentialism or phenomenological existentialism.- Early biography:Born and...

 gave considerable attention to Barbusse's novel in his influential work The Outsider

The Outsider (Colin Wilson)

The Outsider is a non-fiction book by Colin Wilson first published in 1956.Through the works and lives of various artists - including H. G. Wells , Franz Kafka, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, T. S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, Harley Granville-Barker , Hermann Hesse, T. E...

.

English translations

L'Enfer has been translated into English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 twice, first as The Inferno by Edward J. O'Brien for Boni and Liveright in 1918 in an abridged

Expurgation

Expurgation is a form of censorship which involves purging anything deemed noxious or offensive, usually from an artistic work.This has also been called bowdlerization, especially for books, after Thomas Bowdler, who in 1818 published an expurgated edition of William Shakespeare's work that he...

 form, and then in full as Hell by Robert Baldick

Robert Baldick

Robert Baldick was a British scholar of French literature, writer, joint editor of the Penguin Classics series with Betty Radice and a well-known translator. He was a Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford....

 for Chapman and Hall

Chapman and Hall

Chapman & Hall was a British publishing house in London, founded in the first half of the 19th century by Edward Chapman and William Hall. Upon Hall's death in 1847, Chapman's cousin Frederic Chapman became partner in the company, of which he became sole manager upon the retirement of Edward...

 in 1966.