In Edogawa Rampo’s Moju: The Blind Beast, a deranged, scarred and sightless sculptor kidnaps a model and imprisons her in a psychedelic labyrinth of giant sculpted eyes and other outlandish body parts, before dismembering her in a fearful blood-orgy. Her limbs, head and torso are later found scattered throughout Tokyo.

The blind killer continues his sexually-charged spree of amputation and decapitation, claiming several more victims before finally presenting his work at an acclaimed art exhibition in which the sculptures are a little too life-like for comfort...

The most disturbing of Rampo’s novels, Moju: The Blind Beast is a classic of grinding horror and weird sex, tainted with a virulent black humour. It represents one of the earliest literary examples of the Japanese “erotic-grotesque” genre, in which such subjects as dismemberment, mutilation, coprophilia and cannibalism are presented in a perverse sexual context.

This first-ever English translation of Rampo’s classic is illustrated throughout and also includes an introduction by Jack Hunter, author of Eros In Hell.

Edogawa Rampo (1894–1965) was born Taro Hirai; his pen-name is a Japanese version of Edgar Allan Poe, his literary hero. Films based on his works include: Horrors Of Malformed Men (directed by Teruo Ishii); The Human Chair; and The Black Lizard, featuring Yukio Mishima. Moju: The Blind Beast was filmed in 1969 by Yasuzo Masumura, and remains a masterpiece of “erotic-grotesque” Japanese cinema.