Through this network he was able to place the work he was now beginning to produce with increasing ease and fluency, and in 1875 his first conte, a ghost story called ‘La main d’écorché’ (‘The Shrivelled Hand’), was published. From then on, he contributed poems, reviews and literary chronicles to various newspapers and journals including La République des Lettres, La Nation, and La Nouvelliste de Rouen. Two years later, he had become an accredited member of a group of young Naturalists under the leadership of Zola, and in 1880 published in the latter’s collection Les soirées de Médan, the key work ‘Boule de Suif’, which was to make his name overnight.

The life of Maupassant, whose fame now began to spread not only in France but also abroad, was changed radically. Hugely in demand and increasingly certain of an income from his writing, he was able to resign from the Ministry, travel a little in Italy, North Africa and England, and begin to prepare himself for the writing of novels as well as short stories. His subjects, hitherto predominantly peasants, clerks and prostitutes, now became more exclusive to include the property-owning and professional classes. His material circumstances improved still further as his popularity increased. He had a house built at Etretat, bought better and better boats, and finally was able to spend more time on the Riviera at Cannes, Nice and Antibes. It also enabled him to form associations of varying intimacy with a series of wealthy, well-placed and influential society women.

Success and fame now propelled Maupassant into the sparkling, hedonistic world founded on booming industry, finance and colonial development. His rise up the social ladder is partially imitated by the hero of his second novel, Bel-Ami, published in 1885, in which the machinations of the journalistic world and the hidden adulteries controlling politics and finance are exposed. Observing from within, Maupassant presents a harshly realistic account of the double standards at play in society during the Third Republic.