A Parisian Affair and Other Stories

Guy de Maupassant, Siân Miles

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French

Penguin Classics
27 July 2004

A new selection and translation of the best of de Maupassant's short stories

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, civility and generosity, and, in stories such as 'At Sea' and 'Boule de Suif', vanity, greed and hypocrisy. Maupassant's stories repeatedly lay humanity bare with deft wit and devastating honesty.

By: Guy de Maupassant
Translated by: Siân Miles
Imprint: Penguin Classics
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 130mm, Spine: 20mm
Weight: 262g
ISBN: 9780140448122
ISBN 10: 0140448128
Pages: 352
Publication Date: 27 July 2004
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Guy de Maupassant (1850-93) was a literary disciple of Flaubert and one of the group of young Naturalistic writers that formed around Zola. Maupassant's contribution to the Naturalists collaborative collection of tales, Les Soirees de Medan, was 'Boule de suif', which remains one of the most well-known of the hundreds of stories he wrote over the course of his life and on which his literary reputation now rests. He also wrote six novels, including Bel-Ami (1885) and Pierre et Jean (1888). Sian Miles was born in Wales and educated there and in France where she lived for many years. She now teaches at Warwick University and is the author of an anthology of the writings of Simone Weil, and translations of George Sand's Marianne, Violet Trefusis's Echo, and has collaborated on Paul Valery's Cahiers/ Notebooks.