The Best Short Stories

Guy de Maupassant was a master of the short story. This collection displays his lively diversity, with tales that vary in theme and tone, ranging from tragedy and satire to comedy and farce. In a lucidly direct style, he provides unflinching realism and sceptical irony. He depicts the deceptions, hypocrisies and vanities at different levels of society. Prostitution is frankly described, while the harshness of war is deftly exposed. His tales have been televised and have influenced films, operas and rock music. Disillusioned but humane, Maupassant remains our contemporary. AUTHOR: Although Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893) wrote novels, plays, poems and travel journals, it is for his short stories that he is remembered. His output was phenomenal, writing over three hundred short stories in the decade from 1880-1890. These works are rated alongside those of Turgenev, Chekhov, Poe and James, and were highly influential on those that followed him, such as Kipling, Conrad and O. Henry.

de Maupassant was born of upper-middle-class parents in Normandy. He lived with his motehr at Etretat, a newly fashionable seaside resort. Having enrolled as a law student in 1869, he was called up after the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 and served as a quartermaster's clerk in Rouen. Following the war he left the army and eventually secured a post as a minor civil servant.

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