In his stories Guy de Maupassant (1850 1893) blended brilliantly realistic depictions of characters moving against carefully described backgrounds with an objectivity and universality that has earned him a place among the finest of all short-story writers. In this collection of seven of his most popular stories, each tale reflects both the author's intimate familiarity with Paris and the provinces in the Belle Epoque, as well as a nonjudgmental humanism that is one of Maupassant's most attractive qualities.
Included in this volume are his celebrated masterpiece "Boule de Suif," along with...

For days and days, nights and nights, I had dreamed of that first kiss which was to consecrate our engagement, and I knew not on what spot I should put my lips. Not on her forehead, that was accustomed to family caresses, nor on her light hair, which mercenary hands had dressed, nor on her eyes, whose curling lashes looked like little wings, because that would have made me think of the farewell caress which closes the eyelids of some dead woman whom one has adored, nor her lovely mouth, which I will not, which I must not, possess until that divine moment when Elaine will at last belong to me...

In July 1881, having established himself as a writer of great pedigree and potential and at the beginning of a ten-year period that would see him become one of the most popular authors of his age, Maupassant embarked on a dangerous journey to the troubled colony of Algeria, believed to be on the verge of an Arab insurrection. In To the Sun Maupassant describes a land and populace vanquished by the twin powers of the sun and French colonialism, he bows down before the former, finding a personal absolution in the light, heat and space of the desert. But he stands up to the latter, pointing out...

In The Foreign Soul we are in classic Maupassant territory. Robert Mariolle, a wealthy Parisian bachelor, has just arrived in the fashionable spa town of Aix-les-Bains determined to enjoy himself at the casino in the company of high society, attempting to get over his break up with mistress, Henriette Lambel. The Angelus was intended to be Maupassant's great masterpiece, an ambitious inverted allegory of Christianity into which the author would pour his growing pessimism and despair. Set during the Franco-Prussian War, as were some of Maupassant's finest short stories, The Angelus finds the...

An unabridged edition to include: A Duel of Hearts - Twin Roses from a Single Stem - A Flame Rekindled - A Double Jealousy - A Willing Envoy - Springtime and Autumn - A Dangerous Warning - Sweet Poison - A Waning Moon - The Ashes of Love

The story chronicles Georges Duroy's corrupt rise to power from a poor ex-NCO non-commissioned officer) to one of the most successful men in Paris, most of which he achieves by manipulating a series of powerful, intelligent, and wealthy mistresses. The novel is set in Paris in the upper-middle class environment of the leading journalists of the newspaper La Vie Francaise and their friends. It tells the story of Georges Duroy, who has spent three years of military service in Algeria. After six months working as clerk in Paris, an encounter with his former comrade, Forestier, enables him to...

With a simplicity of style that masks complex philosophy, Maupassant can illuminate an entire code of values by means of a few telling details. He exposes the brutality of war and the hypocrisy it spawns, and depicts the petty limitations, the dissimulations and the vanities inherent at different levels of society. His stories are linked by a trenchant irony and by a preoccupation with the frailty of human nature and the futility of so many lives.

Set in the Paris of society women, prostitutes and small-minded bourgeousie, and the isolated villages of rural Normandy that de Maupassant knew as a child, the thirty-three tales in this volume are among the most darkly humorous and brilliant short stories in nineteenth-century literature. They focus on the relationships between men and women, as in the poignant fantasy of 'A Parisian Affair', between brothers and sisters, and between masters and servants. Through these relationships, Maupassant explores the dualistic nature of the human character and his stories reveal both nobility,...