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The Devil Keeps a Shop: Lord Blackcandle and the Polite Monster
The most frightening devils in fiction never raise their voices. They make you an offer and wait for you to say yes.
By Juliet Croft ·
In short: Lord Blackcandle, the proprietor in The Blackcandle Pawnshop, belongs to an old literary line — the devil as a courteous merchant, from Marlowe’s Mephistophilis to Washington Irving’s “The Devil and Tom Walker.” He has run his shop for four hundred years under three rules, and nobody has ever been dragged through the door.
When I started writing Lord Blackcandle, I made one rule for myself before any of his: he would never raise his voice.
Fiction’s most frightening devils rarely do. Marlowe’s Mephistophilis is weary and almost confiding with Faustus; he tells him plainly that hell is not a place he has escaped. Goethe’s Mephistopheles is witty, impatient, good company at a party. In Washington Irving’s “The Devil and Tom Walker,” the stranger in the swamp is a businessman with terms, and Tom ends up a usurer. In Stephen Vincent Benét’s “The Devil and Daniel Webster,” he is a gentleman who would rather win at trial than by force.
That is the tradition Blackcandle comes from. Not the horned thing in the fire — the one across the counter.
Three rules
He has run the shop at the end of the alley for four hundred years, and in all that time the rules have never been broken. The transaction is voluntary. The price is stated plainly. The proprietor may never violate a contract.
Read them again and notice who they protect. Not the customer. Him. A devil who never lies and never forces has made himself unanswerable: every person who walks out of that shop lighter than they came in said yes, out loud, to terms they heard in full.
That is why he is so pleasant. He doesn’t need to threaten anyone. He only needs to wait for the moment a person wants something more than they can afford — and then name the real price.
Why polite is worse
A monster who shouts gives you something to push against. A monster who listens, who asks about your father and remembers the year the river came up, takes that away. You start to like him. You start to think the bargain might be fair.
Noah Green learns this the hard way. He takes the job of pricing other people’s souls because it buys him thirty days at a time, and Blackcandle is the most generous employer he has ever had. The ledger on the counter holds forty-seven names before his. Only one isn’t struck through.
On Halloween
Tonight is the night the old stories say the door between rooms is thinnest. Blackcandle would tell you he has never needed a special night. The door is always open. You just have to want something badly enough to see it.
Questions people ask
Who is Lord Blackcandle?
The proprietor of the pawnshop in The Blackcandle Pawnshop, a literary short drama by Juliet Croft. He has run the shop for four hundred years and buys what people value most.
What are Lord Blackcandle’s three rules?
The transaction is voluntary, the price is stated plainly, and the proprietor may never violate a contract.
Is The Blackcandle Pawnshop based on Faust?
Yes. It is a modern retelling of the Faust legend set in New Orleans, with a devil drawn from the courteous-merchant tradition of Marlowe, Goethe, Irving and Benét. Read more in Faust in New Orleans.
How many episodes are there, and where can I watch?
Forty-six. The season is on julietcroftfilms.com; join the mailing list to watch.
Notes from the cutting room
Two short essays a week on the books behind the dramas — the bargains, the hauntings and the reckonings. The same email unlocks all forty-six episodes of The Blackcandle Pawnshop.
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