Books with author Guy De Maupassant

Guy de Maupassant was a popular French writer in the 19th century. He was one of the first writers to write short stories. Many of his stories were set during the Franco-Prussian war. His stories show the futility of war and war's effects on the innocent. Strong as Death is the love story of a lower class painter who is in love with a countess. As she grows older she fears the artist will fall in love with her beautiful daughter. The fear of growing old is timeless. An excerpt reads, "The attraction that impelled him toward this girl a little resembled those obscure yet innocent desires that go to make up part of all the ceaseless and unappeasable vibrations of human nerves. His eye of the artist, as well as that of the man, was captivated by her freshness, by that springing of beautiful clear life, by that essence of youth that glowed in her; and his heart, full of memories of his long intimacy with the Countess, finding in the extraordinary resemblance of Annette to her mother a reawakening of old feelings, of emotions sleeping since the beginning of his love, had been startled perhaps by the sensation of an awakening. An awakening? Yes. Was it that?"

A protégé of Flaubert, Maupassant's stories are characterized by their economy of style and efficient, effortless dénouement. Many of the stories are set during the Franco-Prussian War of the 1870s and several describe the futility of war and the innocent civilians who, caught in the conflict, emerge changed. He authored some 300 short stories, six novels, three travel books, and one volume of verse. The story "Boule de Suif" ("Ball of Fat", 1880) is often accounted his masterpiece. His most unsettling horror story, "Le Horla" (1887), was about madness and suicide. Some of the story titles are: Ball of Fat The Diamond Necklace A Piece of String The Story of a Farm Girl In the Moonlight Love Monsieur Parent Useless Beauty An Affair of State Babette A Cock Crowed