Guy de Maupassant
A sharp-eyed chronicler of 19th-century French society, whose brutally honest short stories dissected human folly and desire.
1850–1893 (age 43)·French writer·Birthday: August 5
Biography
Guy de Maupassant emerged from the shadow of his mentor, Gustave Flaubert, to become the defining voice of the French short story. His life was a turbulent blend of artistic triumph and personal despair. After serving in the Franco-Prussian War, he took a clerical job but spent his evenings under Flaubert's exacting tutelage, learning to observe with pitiless clarity. His breakthrough came with 'Boule de Suif' in 1880, a masterpiece of irony set in a carriage shared by citizens of different classes. For the next decade, in a furious creative burst, he produced over 300 short stories, six novels, and countless articles, capturing the bourgeoisie, peasants, and the emerging middle class with equal parts realism and dark humor. His work stripped away romantic pretense, focusing on greed, lust, and the often cruel workings of chance. Plagued by syphilis contracted in his youth, his mental health deteriorated, leading to his death in a Paris asylum at just 42, but not before he had permanently shaped the form of the modern short story.
#1 When Guy Was Born
The biggest hits of 1850
Guy's Life & Times
The world at every milestone
1850Born
1855Started school
1863Became a teenager
President: Abraham Lincoln
1866Could drive
President: Andrew Johnson
1868Could vote
President: Andrew Johnson
1871Turned 21
President: Ulysses S. Grant
1880Turned 30
Edison patents the incandescent light bulb
President: Rutherford B. Hayes
1890Turned 40
Wounded Knee massacre marks the end of the Indian Wars
President: Benjamin Harrison
1893Died at 43
World's Columbian Exposition dazzles Chicago
President: Grover Cleveland
Key Achievements
- Published his masterpiece, the short story 'Boule de Suif', in 1880 to immediate and widespread acclaim.
- Authored over 300 short stories, including classics like 'The Necklace' and 'The Horla', in a single prolific decade.
- His novel 'Bel-Ami' (1885) offered a scathing critique of journalism and social climbing in Parisian society.
- Became a central figure of the naturalist literary movement, influencing generations of writers with his unflinching realism.
Did You Know?
He was a passionate oarsman and owned several boats, often writing about sailing and the Seine River.
Maupassant served as a clerk in the French Navy Ministry, a dull job he despised but which provided material for his stories.
His debilitating illness led to a fascination with the supernatural, evident in later stories like 'The Horla'.
He claimed to have rowed over 1,000 miles on the Seine in a single year.
“A sick thought can devour the body's flesh more than fever or consumption.”
