French Classics in French and English

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.

Alexander Vassiliev is a Russian-British writer, screenwriter, and espionage historian living in London. Vassiliev was born in Moscow, USSR, in 1962. He graduated from Moscow State University with a degree in journalism in 1984. From 1984 to 1985, Vassiliev worked in the international department of Komsomolskaya Pravda (Young Communists' Truth). In 1985, he entered the Andropov Red Banner Institute of the KGB, completing his studies there in 1987. From 1987 to 1990, Vassiliev served as an officer in the First (American) Department of the First Chief Directorate of the KGB. In February 1990, he resigned from the KGB for political and moral reasons. Vassiliev then returned to Komsomolskaya Pravda, where he worked as a reporter and later as a columnist from 1990 to 1996, writing primarily about international affairs and espionage. In 1993, Vassiliev was invited by the press bureau of the Russian Intelligence Service to participate in a joint Russian-American book project. He spent two years researching top-secret KGB archives relating to Soviet espionage operations in the United States during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. Based on this research, Vassiliev later co-authored two books with American historians: The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America-The Stalin Era and Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America.