Guy de Maupassant's Selected Works: A Norton Critical Edition

by Guy de Maupassant, Sandra Smith (Translator), Robert Lethbridge (Editor)

Overview

“Smith successfully captures Maupassant’s depiction of nineteenth-century French culture using terminology that allows these wonderful texts to reach a fresh generation of readers. A solid translation of some wonderful short stories.”
—Library Journal

The Norton Critical Edition includes:
- Thirty of Maupassant’s best short stories centering on war, the supernatural, and French life, translated by Sandra Smith.
- An introduction and explanatory footnotes by Robert Lethbridge.
- Essays, letters, and newspaper articles on the subjects that influenced Maupassant’s writing, including politics, war, love,
despair, and the supernatural.
- Sixteen critical assessments from Maupassant’s time to our own, including those by Joseph Conrad, David Coward, Mary
Donaldson-Evans, Rachel Killick, Roger L. Williams, Ruth A. Hottell, and Katherine C. Kurk.
- A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393923278
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	08/31/2016
Series:	Norton Critical Editions Series
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Born in Normandy, Guy de Maupassant (1850–1893) is the author of over three hundred short stories and six novels, including Bel Ami and Pierre et Jean. He is widely considered to be one of the fathers of the modern short story.

Sandra Smith is the translator of Camus' The Stranger and Irène Nemirovsky's Suite Française, which won her the French American Foundation and Florence Gould Foundation Translation prize and the PEN/Book-of-the-Month-Club Translation Prize. She lives in New York.

Robert Lethbridge is Emeritus Honorary Professor of nineteenth-century French Literature at Cambridge University and Professor Emeritus of French Language and Literature at the University of London. He was formerly Master of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. He is the author of Maupassant: ‘Pierre et Jean’ and has edited Pierre et Jean and Bel- Ami for Oxford University Press’s World Classics series. The majority of his publications have been devoted to the work of Émile Zola and the relationship between literature and the visual arts in late nineteenth-century France.

Table of Contents

Introduction xi

Guy de Maupassant's Selected Works 1

Tales of French Life 3

The Necklace (La Parure) 3

My Uncle Jules (Mon Oncle Jules) 10

The Protector (Le Protecteur) 17

The Journey (Le Voyage) 21

Mademoiselle Pearl (Mademoiselle Perle) 26

The Umbrella (Le Parapluie) 39

On Horseback (A Cheval) 46

The Baptism (Le Baptême) 53

In the Countryside (Aux Champs) 57

Adieu (Adieu) 62

A Day in the Country (Une Partie de Campagne) 66

The Question of Latin (La Question du Latin) 76

Tales of War 85

Boule de Suif (Boule de Suif)-Novella 85

Mademoiselle Fifi (Mademoiselle Fifi) 119

The Madwoman (La Folle) 131

Lieutenant Laré's Marriage (Le Mariage du Lieutenant Laré) 133

Two Friends (Deux Amis) 137

Père Milon (Le Père Milon) 143

The Adventure of Walter Schnaffs (L'Aventure de Walter Schnaffs) 149

La Mère Sauvage (La Mère Sauvage) 156

The Prisoners (Les Prisonniers) 162

A Duel (Un Duel) 172

Tales of the Supernatural 177

Le Horla (Le Horla)-Novella 177

On the Water (Sur l'eau) 200

Fear (La Peur) 205

The Apparition (L'Apparition) 210

The Hand (La Main) 216

Lost at Sea (Le Noyé) 222

Who Can Know? (Qui sait?) 227

A Nightmare (La Nuit: Un Cauchemar) 238

Contexts

The Craft of Fiction 245

Preface to Pierre et Jean (1888) 245

Politics 255

Letter to Gustave Flaubert, December 10, 1877 255

Article in Le Gaulois, September 8, 1881 [Politicians and Principles] 256

Article in Gil Bias, April 7, 1885 [Elected Representatives] 257

Article in Le Gaulois, December 23, 1889 [Republicanism] 258

War 261

Letter to Gustave Flaubert, January 5, 1880 261

Article in Le Gaulois, April 10, 1881: War 261

Social Types 265

Article in Le Gaulois, June 9, 1881: The Social Hierarchy 265

Article in Le Gaulois, January 4, 1882 [Government Employees] 266

Essay in Les Types de Paris (1889): [The Laboring Classes] 267

[Housemaids] 268

Article in Le Gaulois, March 16, 1883 [Good Citizens of France] 270

Article in Le Gaulois, January 3, 1883 [The Parisian Provincial] 271

Women, Love, and Marriage 273

Article in Le Gaulois, December 30, 1880 [Schopenhauer's View of Women] 273

Letter to Gisèle d'Estoc, January 1881 274

Article in Gil Bias, October 29, 1881 [The "Parisienne"] 275

Article in Le Gaulois, November 22, 1881 [Marriage and Adultery] 277

Preface to René Maizeroi's Celles qui osent (1883) 278

Preface to Paul Ginisty's LAuwztr à Trois (1884) 280

Article in Le Gaulois, June 25, 1882: Elderly Women 280

The Supernatural 283

Article in Le Gaulois, November 8, 1881 [Mystery and Myth] 283

Article in Le Gaulois, October 7, 1883: The Fantastic 284

Pessimism, Illness, and Despair 287

Letter to Caroline Cornmanville, May 24, 1880 287

Article in Le Gaulois, February 25, 1884 [The Ravages of Age] 288

Article in Gil Blas, June 10, 1884 [Blessed Are the Content] 289

Letter to Jean Bourdeau, October 1889 292

Letter to Dr. Grancher, 1891 292

Telegram to Henry Cazalis, January 1891 293

Letter to Henrv Cazalis, January 1891 293

Letter to Henrv Cazalis, August/September 1891 293

Criticism

Early Criticism 297

[Maupassant and the Senses] Henry James 297

[Maupassant's Misanthropy] Jules Lemattre 297

[Maupassant's Cynicism] Arthur Svinons 301

[The Austerity of Maupassant's Talent] Joseph Conrad 304

[Maupassant's Technique and His Philosophy of Life] Aaron Schaffer 308

Modern Criticism 313

General 313

[Maupassant's Cruelty and Compassion] David Coward 313

[Maupassant's Journalism] Trevor A. Le V. Harris 316

Tales of French Life 317

Narration, the Maternal, and the Trap in Maupassant's Mademoiselle Perle Ann L. Murphy 317

Narrative Structure in Maupassant: Frames of Desire Angela S. Moger 328

Tales of War 342

The Decline and Fall of Elisabeth Rousset: Text and Context in Maupassant's Boule de suif Mary Donaldson-Evans 342

Mademoiselle Fifi: An Unexpected Literary Source Richard Bolster 360

Mock Heroics? Narrative Strategy in a Maupassant War Story Rachel Killick 362

Tales of the Supernatural 380

[Maupassant's Pathological Themes] Roger L. Williams 380

The Evolution of Maupassant's Supernatural Stories Allan H. Pasco 382

The Delusory Denouement and Other Narrative Strategies in Maupassant's Fantastic Tales Ruth A. Hottell 389

Maupassant and the Divided Self: Qui Suit? Katherine C. Kurk 399

A Chronology Guy de Maupassant 411

Selected Bibliography 415