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A PARISIAN AFFAIR AND OTHER STORIES

GUY DE MAUPASSANT (1850–1893), internationally acknowledged master of the short story, spent childhood alternately at the homes of his separated parents in Paris and the Normandy coastal resort of Etretat. As an adolescent, he was taken under the wing of Flaubert, a family friend who encouraged him in his efforts to become a writer. After a brief period in the army during the Franco-Prussian war, he became a minor civil servant at various ministries. He developed a variety of sporting skills to a high standard; rowing, sailing, fencing, etc. and became a crack shot. As a result of his many amorous affairs and of an inherited predisposition, he also developed syphilis. After the publication of ‘Boule de Suif’, the story which made his name overnight, he became hugely popular as a writer and his work was translated into many languages. He led a hectic social life, using his observations as copy for the over three hundred short stories and six novels he produced. He refused, however, the accolades which society was anxious to bestow upon him. His physical and mental health deteriorated until in 1891, after an attempted suicide, he was admitted into psychiatric care and died two years later.

SIÂN MILES was born and brought up in the bi-cultural atmosphere of Wales and educated there and in France where she lived for many years. She has taught at a number of universities both at home and abroad, including Tufts University in Massachusetts, Dakar University in Sénégal and York University in Toronto. She now teaches at Warwick University in England. Her publications include: Simone Weil: An Anthology, now in its third edition, George Sand: Marianne, a translation of Violet Trefusis’ Echo and, in collaboration, Paul Valéry’s Cahiers/Notebooks.

GUY DE MAUPASSANT

A Parisian Affair and Other Stories

Translated with an Introduction and Notes by

SIÂN MILES

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS

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First published 2004

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Copyright © Siân Miles, 2004

The moral right of the translator has been asserted

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

9780141915296

Contents

Acknowledgements

Chronology