Here are all the unmissable milestones of Maupassant's writing, including 'Boule de Suif', 'The Necklace', 'Le Horla' and 'Mademoiselle Fifi'. Each story an exemplar of the form and globally, perennially popular for their mastery; each one creating a world, a character, an emotional knot and a final twist of the knife. And each also a time-and-place capsule: provincial life in Maupassant's native Normandy and the daily round of bourgeois life in Paris have never been more vividly recreated. This essential selection reveals another crucial aspect of Maupassant's aesthetic: his mastery of the macabre. From 'The Flayed Hand' to 'Beside a Dead Man' and 'Letter of a Madman', Maupassant repeatedly returns to the presence of death and the dead alongside the living. From mild frisson, through chilling twists to full-blown terror, he evokes the full range of fears and horrors, and their effects on our minds and bodies. What Victor Hugo did at length with his Hunchback of Notre Dame, Maupassant can do in just a few, intense pages.



Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893) was a prolific 19th-century French writer, recognised then and now as a master of the short story. Born and raised in rural Normandy, his early literary career in Paris profited from the mentorship of Gustave Flaubert, who introduced him to the naturalist school. Maupassant's work is characterised by a detached, objective style and a focus on the daily lives of the lower and middle classes. In little more than a decade, he produced six novels and more than three hundred short stories. His experiences as a volunteer in the Franco-Prussian war profoundly informed his fictions, which often explore the futility of conflict. Despite prodigious success, his later years were compromised by a tragic decline into mental illness caused by a syphilitic condition. He died in 1893 at the age of 42, in a private clinic in Paris.Will Stone born 1966, is a poet, essayist and literary translator who divides his time between Suffolk and the European continent. His first poetry collection Glaciation (Salt, 2007), won the International Glen Dimplex Award for Poetry in 2008 (Dublin). His translations from French and German include works by Stefan Zweig, Joseph Roth, Georg Trakl, Rainer Maria Rilke, Gérard de Nerval, Georg Simmel, Maurice Betz, Guy de Pourtalès, Emile Verhaeren and Georges Rodenbach. His most recent translations were a collection of letters by Rilke from French, Letters around a Garden (Seagull Books, 2024) and Conversations with Rilke, a memoir by the poet's French translator Maurice Betz (Pushkin, 2025).



'Maupassant proves a master at the slow sea change of human emotions, and even more their complexity'



'You can practically hear the rustling of the ladies' silks, or catch the sobs that are such a feature of the erotic lives of high society... And my God, is it sexy. This is a love in which intellect and emotion are at play at the same time. There is passion and there is calculation ... Drink deeply of this intoxicating, heady work.'



'[Maupassant] is brilliantly clever.'



'With Chekhov, Maupassant is the greatest master of the short story in world literature.'



'A genuine Latin to whom I am particularly attached, Guy de Maupassant.'



'He was understood because he had clarity, simplicity, moderation and strength. He was loved because he possessed a laughing goodness; a profound satire which persists even through tears.'



Maupassant is the world's most accomplished of narrators.



[Maupassant] is so relentlessly artistic that he puts the fear of philosophy in your heart.