Mademoiselle Perle and Other Stories (riverrun editions)
a new selection of the sharp, sensitive and much-revered stories
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A priest receives an unexpected visitor from his past.
A triumphant celebration ends in murder.
A doctor tells of an unrequited love that only ended with death.
Maupassant's direct treatment of sex and sexuality, and his insistence that the artist's primary duty was faithfulness to his own perceptions, made his work a challenge to many of his nineteenth-century English readers, but in Henry James's view, his vision was, 'altogether of this life'.
His stories may have mystified contemporary moralists, but he was championed by writers who admired his resistance to self-censorship and applauded the economy of his style. In this new selection of his best stories, the sensitive and faithful translations of Ada Galsworthy and Elsie Martindale Hueffer show why writers like Conrad (whose preface is included) and Ford Madox Ford revered Maupassant's work.
Guy De Maupassant
Guy de Maupassant was a French writer and poet considered to be one of the pioneers of the modern short story whose best-known works include "Boule de Suif," "Mother Sauvage," and "The Necklace." De Maupassant was heavily influenced by his mother, a divorcée who raised her sons on her own, and whose own love of the written word inspired his passion for writing. While studying poetry in Rouen, de Maupassant made the acquaintance of Gustave Flaubert, who became a supporter and life-long influence for the author. De Maupassant died in 1893 after being committed to an asylum in Paris.
More by Guy De Maupassant
Elsie Martindale
Translated by
Elsie Martindale Hueffer (1876-1949) was the wife of Ford Madox Ford. Ford and Elsie went from being school friends to soulmates, to literary collaborators, then lovers, and eloped in 1894. By late 1902 Elsie, encouraged by her husband and by Conrad, at the time their friend and neighbour in Kent, started translating Maupassant.
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