Biography and Work of Guy de Maupassant

Biography and Work of Guy de Maupassant

Guy de Maupassant is acknowledged through the world as one of the masters of the short story; Guy de Maupassant was also the author of a collection of poetry, a volume of plays, three travel journals, six novels, and many chronicles. He produced some three hundred short stories in the single decade from 1880 to 1890; a period during which he produced most of his other works. Five of his six novels were published during the second half of the decade. “His short fiction has been compared to that of Ivan Turgenev, Anton Chekhov, Edgar Allan Poe, and Henry James.” (Encyclopedia Britanica 1012)

Maupassant took as his primary goal the realistic portrayal of everyday life. He wrote about what he knew best, and that is as a peasant of his native home of Normandy, the war of 1870, the lives of government employees and Parisian high society, and his own fears and hallucinations. “His short stories were seen as masterpieces of economy, clarity, and classical in their formal simplicity, uncommonly varied in their theme was and keenly evocative in their descriptions.” (Marx 303)

Guy de Maupassant is otherwise known as Henri Rene Albert, Joseph Prunier, Guy de Valmont, or even Maufrigneuese. He was born on August 5, 1850, in Chateau de Miromesnil, near tourville-sur Argues, Normandy, France. Maupassant, the first child of Laure Le Poittevin and Gustave de Maupassant. Records show a discrepancy as to his birthplace, some scholars maintain it was Decamp, but the official view, supported by his birth certificate, is that he first saw the light of day at the Chateau de Miromesnil.

Maupassant died on July 6, 1893, of complications resulting from syphilis, in a sanitarium in Paris. He attend...

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