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Product Description
This Wordsworth Edition includes an exclusive new Introduction by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex
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. Unillusioned but humane, Maupassant remains our contemporary.
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FOR SEVERAL DAYS in succession fragments of a defeated army had passed through the town. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
FOR SEVERAL DAYS in succession fragments of a defeated army had passed through the town. Read the first page
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
53 of 54 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Guy de Maupassant's strangely beautiful stories vary from uplifting explorations of moralistic living, through humorous parodies of the middle classes of 19th century France and their foolish attempts to better themselves, right through to the most critical revelations of the baseness of human existance, often revealed in the self-same stories. They are at once depressing and uplifting, cynical and idealistic, humorous and thought-provoking. The one thing that each story has in common is that it leaves the reader with a new insight into the human condition.
This collection contains:
Boule de Suif
Two Friends
Madame Tellier's Establishment
Madamoiselle Fifi
Clair de Lune
Miss Harriet
The Necklace
Madamoiselle Pearl
The Piece of String
Madame Husson's 'Rosier'
That Pig of a Morin
Useless Beauty
The Olive Orchard
A Sale
Love
Two Little Soldiers
Happiness
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A magnificent collection indeed. Guy de Maupassant is the best storyteller of the 19th century France... This particular edition has the most entertaining short stories, each capable of delivering as strong a message on moral and profoundly non-societal ethics, as remarkably to-the-point images of an average French bourgeois or an average French peasant. The heroes are complex, decorated with their subjective and objectified environments: they fall in and out of love, abandon and adopt children...unpunished thieves, unfaithful servants, families enatngled in inheritance dispairs... His pen is so powerful that story after story lives succumb in theatrical precision so benign and materialistic, yet lively and at times, even lovable.
Being one of the best literary classics and appreciated in his lifetime and eternally after, Guy de Maupassant seemingly detested the societal formalities. He remained a shrewd observer althrough his journey from one story to the other and led a comparably humble life. Known for finding the Eiffel tower a most abhorrent addition to Paris, he analogically led an observer's life from a decent enough pedestal. Albeit his expressed dislike of the Tower, he'd nevertheless go there every day for his morning coffee for "it's the only place whence I cannot see it". True to his natural longing for an absolute fairness, he wrote of lives merely looking at them and never living one himself.
For all the above reasons, by all means, definitely get a copy of this book and enjoy the read through laughs and tears.
Being one of the best literary classics and appreciated in his lifetime and eternally after, Guy de Maupassant seemingly detested the societal formalities. He remained a shrewd observer althrough his journey from one story to the other and led a comparably humble life. Known for finding the Eiffel tower a most abhorrent addition to Paris, he analogically led an observer's life from a decent enough pedestal. Albeit his expressed dislike of the Tower, he'd nevertheless go there every day for his morning coffee for "it's the only place whence I cannot see it". True to his natural longing for an absolute fairness, he wrote of lives merely looking at them and never living one himself.
For all the above reasons, by all means, definitely get a copy of this book and enjoy the read through laughs and tears.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
De Maupassant has a vivid, evocative style of writing like no other. The characters leap off the page at you and his analysis of human interactions is as relevant now as when this book was written. I really enjoyed this book - highly recommended.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
It's no wonder that these stories are so widely plagiarised
As you enjoy these stories, you may find some of them strangely familiar. Top-selling authors have 'borrowed' the plots of some, and re-written them for their own audience. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Honest Accountant
Absorbing
This book was my introduction to this author and I will certainly be reading more. The stories transport the reader through space and time but are also timeless. Read more
Published on 25 May 2009 by Patience
exellent
almost as good as chekhov with his short stories.
got into short stories through chekhov,
short stories were not really my thing, as i... Read more
got into short stories through chekhov,
short stories were not really my thing, as i... Read more
Published on 11 May 2007 by Andrew Ferguson
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