by Emile Erckmann

Emile Erckmann (1822-1899) and Alexandre Chatrian (1826-1890) used the name Erckmann-Chatrian for their works jointly written. They were both born in the departement of Moselle, in the Lorraine region in the extreme north-east of France. They specialised in military fiction and ghost stories in a rustic mode, applying to the Vosges mountain range and the Alsace-Lorraine region techniques inspired by story-tellers from the Black Forest. Life-long friends who first met in the spring of 1847, they finally quarreled in 1886, after which no more stories appeared from their pen. In 1890 Chatrian died, and Erckmann wrote a few pieces under his own name. Tales of supernatural horror by the duo that are famous in English include The Wild Huntsman (1871) and The Man-Wolf and Other Tales (1876).