The life and letter of Lafcadio Hearn including the Japanese Letters. Volume III.

Bel Ami (The History of a Scoundrel): The story chronicles journalist Georges Duroy's corrupt rise to power from a poor ex-NCO to one of the most successful men in Paris, most of which he achieves by manipulating a series of powerful, intelligent, and wealthy mistresses. The novel is set in Paris in the upper-middle class environment of the leading journalists of the newspaper La Vie Française and their friends. Pierre et Jean - is a naturalist or psycho-realist story, notably so by the subjects on which it treats, including knowledge of one's heredity (whether one is a legitimate son or a bastard), the bourgeoisie, and the problems stemming from money. Notre Coeur (A Woman's Pastime): The novel tells the story of a woman without a heart, frigid and probably a lesbian. The hero, facing this fascinating and awesome being, takes another mistress, who can hardly satisfy him. He is devastated by this passionate love, violent, melancholic and cruel. A Life is a satirical novel about the folly of romantic illusion. The novel tells the story of young Jeanne, full of hope and dreams of love, who discovers the outside world after finishing an education in a convent. She is looking forward to her new life and she is dreaming of the day when she will find the man who loves her. All her expectations are fulfilled, however… Mont Oriol Strong as Death. Guy de Maupassant was a French writer, remembered as a master of the short story form, and as a representative of the naturalist school of writers.

"Notre Coeur; or, A Woman's Pastime" by Guy de Maupassant is a psychological novel about a frigid heartless woman. In this French story, the hero is devastated by the violent, melancholic, cruel, and passionate love. He takes another mistress, but she can hardly satisfy him. Excerpt: "One day Massival, the celebrated composer of "Rebecca," who for fifteen years, now, had been known as "the young and illustrious master," said to his friend André Mariolle: "Why is it that you have never secured a presentation to Mme. Michèle de Burne? Take my word for it, she is one of the most interesting women in new Paris." "Because I do not feel myself at all adapted to her surroundings." "You are wrong, my dear fellow. It is a house where there is a great deal of novelty and originality; it is wide-awake and very artistic. There is excellent music, and the conversation is as good as in the best salons of the last century. You would be highly appreciated—in the first place because you play so well on the violin, then because you have been very favorably spoken of in the house, and finally because you have the reputation of being select in your choice of friends."

A world list of books in the English language.

Set in the Paris of society women, prostitutes and small-minded bourgeousie, and the isolated villages of rural Normandy that de Maupassant knew as a child, the thirty-three tales in this volume are among the most darkly humorous and brilliant short stories in nineteenth-century literature. They focus on the relationships between men and women, as in the poignant fantasy of 'A Parisian Affair', between brothers and sisters, and between masters and servants. Through these relationships, Maupassant explores the dualistic nature of the human character and his stories reveal both nobility, civility and generosity, and, in stories such as 'At Sea' and 'Boule de Suif', vanity, greed and hypocrisy. Maupassant's stories repeatedly lay humanity bare with deft wit and devastating honesty.