The Complete Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant Part Two [Paperback]

Guy de Maupassant (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2005

1903. Part Two contains Volumes V-X of X. French author of the naturalistic school, Maupassant is generally considered to be the greatest French short story writer of his day. The Complete Short Stories contains the 300 short stories Maupassant wrote during the 1880s, including his horror fiction, which consists of some 39 stories, only a tenth of his total. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing. Other volumes in this set are ISBN(s): 1417936142.

Product Details

• Paperback: 524 pages
• Publisher: Kessinger Publishing, LLC (March 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1417936150
• ISBN-13: 978-1417936151
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,678,408 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars right guy, wrong edition, May 29, 2006

By 

Milo Rambaldi - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Complete Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant (Paperback)

This review is in two parts: (1) praise of Maupassant's genius; (2) telling you which edition to buy (not this one).

It is annoying that Maupassant's name so often arises just in the history of the short story, as though his works might be mostly of interest as some kind of historical stepping stones along the way to greater geniuses. One even sees a hint of this in the book description above, where it has him "generally considered the greatest French short story writer of his day"---unwarrantably faint praise for arguably the greatest short story writer of all time, anywhere. In truth, Maupassant achieved a unique perfection in the art of the short story that has not been equalled since. Other masters---Chekhov, Saki, Roald Dahl, Henry James, Jack Vance, Philip K. Dick, Ambrose Bierce---are as good, but in entirely different ways.

Maupassant's standard of quality is not consistently high, and a good fraction of these stories are mediocre at best. It's not so low as Saki's, where a few gems outshine all the others combined, nor so high as Dahl's, where almost every tale is brilliant. But many, many, many of them are extremely good or better, and it's important to get the complete works since smaller anthologies invariably make lots of bad selection decisions in Maupassant's case; moreover there's no excuse not to get the complete works, for how often can one possess almost the entire genius of a great man in a single volume?

I'm partial to the humorous, the cynical, the dark, and my very favourites are: "The Old Man", "Walter Schnaffs' Adventure", "The Relic", "That Pig of a Morin", "The Devil", "A Madman", "The Sisters Rondoli", "The Noncommissioned Officer", "Old Amable", "The False Gems", "The Horla", "How He Got the Legion of Honor", "Of Doctor Heraclius Gloss". Almost as good are: "Ball of Fat", "A Bad Error", "Growing Old", "Making a Convert", "On Cats", "A Traveler's Notes", "The Umbrella", "Selfishness", "An Idyl", "A Vagabond", "A Sale", "The Revenge", "Our Friends the English". One could go on; yet another forty or so are almost as good as these.

Some might call Maupassant's writing immoral, but it's more as though he has his own rakish personal morality, unique and unconventional (especially by 19th century standards), whereby, for instance, the secret seduction of another man's wife is the greatest good. I mostly disagree with him, but this in no way detracts from the enjoyment of his tales; indeed, what is more tedious than a moralizing, holier-than-thou author? Maupassant's stories usually are short, and he has an amazing talent for telling a lot, covering much time and territory, with few words---not by writing in generalities, but by always giving just the right details. A precious, disturbing, few, written near the end of his short life as he was declining into insanity, are unlike anything you will find anywhere else.

So, which edition? This one, unfortunately, appears to be a reprint of the ubiquitous, error-filled 1903 first American edition of his "complete" works. This not only misses a few of Maupassant's stories, it somehow---shockingly---falsely includes under his name sixty-five stories not even written by him (source: the introduction to the edition I'm about to recommend). Fortunately, there is a beautiful, but more difficult to find, edition of his complete short stories, lovingly edited by a certain Artine Artinian, a Maupassant scholar. It's called "The Complete Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant", Hanover House, Garden City, New York, Copyright 1955 by Doubleday & Co. This is a high quality volume of 1339 pages of thin, tightly bound acid-free paper. Find a copy.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Author Influenced the Modern Short Story, July 28, 2005

By 

Theresa Williams "Zen" (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Complete Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant (Paperback)

It is a shame that the only story most people have read of Maupassant's is the much anthologized "The Necklace." There are many other Maupassant stories that readers would likely find more original and memorable than this one. For a long while, it has been difficult to find a complete set of Maupassant's stories. I'm happy to see they are available again for readers to enjoy. As a very young adolescent in the late 1960s, I discovered the short stories of Guy de Maupassant. They were so frightening to me, so close to the bare bone of truth, that I hid his collection under my bed for fear I would be "found out" reading them. Two stories that stand out to me, which I have read many times throughout my life, are "Mother of Monsters" and "Bellflower." "Mother of Monsters" is about a poor woman who bound her abdomen with corsets during her pregnancies so as to create "monsters," which she then sold to side shows. It was how she made her living. The gruesome nature of the story notwithstanding, it is the metaphorical implication that most intrigues me. The story invites us to ask ourselves to what extent we endanger ourselves and our children for the sake of survival. How do we "contort" our children psychologically so that they (and we) will "succeed" or "fit in," and thus become financially successful. I'm sure I didn't understand all the implications of the story when I was young; but the story has grown in my mind all these years, and it has served as a warning. Bellflower is a tender and most terrible recollection of the life and death of Clochette (or Bellflower). At the beginning of the story, Maupassant writes:

"HOW STRANGE are those old recollections which haunt us without our being able to get rid of them! This one is so very old that I cannot understand how it has clung so vividly and tenaciously to my memory. Since then I have seen so many sinister things, either affecting or terrible, that I am astonished at not being able to pass a single day without the face of Mother Bellflower recurring to my mind's eye, just as I knew her formerly long, long ago, when I was ten or twelve years old."

The purpose of the story is to reveal the origin of Bellflower's limp:

"She limped, not like lame people generally do, but like a ship pitching. When she planted her great bony, vibrant body on her sound leg, she seemed to be preparing to mount some enormous wave, and then suddenly she dipped as if to disappear in an abyss and buried herself in the ground. Her walk reminded one of a ship in a storm, and her head, which was always covered with an enormous white cap, whose ribbons fluttered down her back, seemed to traverse the horizon from north to south and from south to north at each limp."

I won't spoil the story by revealing what happened to Bellflower in her youth, but I will stress that this is a hauntingly beautiful story.

I implore anyone interested in the short story form to take a look at Maupassant's work. Most of his stories are very short: we might call them "sudden fiction" today. This would be a great volume to keep beside your bed to read from at night. Many of the stories are also excellent for use in high school or college literature or creative writing courses.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This is definitely "NOT" the edition to buy for the "COMPLETE" Short Stories, April 27, 2008

By 

Lorenzo Hernandez (Brooklyn, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Complete Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant (Paperback)

For those interested in coming as close as possible to having the complete collection of short stories written by Guy de Maupassant in one volume, then please stay away from this collection. As mentioned in the very first review here, this 1903 publication is far from complete and is false advertising for another reason as well. Of the "223" short stories included, only "158" are works of the French short story master --- the remaining "65" stories were written by others and, to be totally honest, are downright mediocre. Don't know what the publisher's were thinking, but I can only attribute this to wanting to pad out this volume due to their not truly having de Maupassants complete works available.

Also do NOT be tricked by the title of another volume, also readily available on this site, "The Complete WORKS of Guy de Maupassant". That title is completly false as well ( less than "30" stories are included ). Apparently, simply because this volume was printed under this title back in 1917, publishers think they are not commiting a crime by continuing to use it here in 2008. Stay away from it.

The ONLY true source, as far as I know, of the complete, or as close to complete as possible, edition of de Maupassant's tales is (as mentioned by the first reviewer), the 1955 Hanover House edition of "The COMPLETE SHORT STORIES OF GUY DE MAUPASSANT" with the introduction by Professor Artine Artinian. It contains "271" short stories, ALL by de Maupassant, in a 1339 page hardcover volume. Unfortunately, this book is no longer in print, but you should be able to track it down via the many used or rare book services on the internet for a relatively low price. I was lucky enough to find a volume in decent (though far from mint) shape, at the Strands Book Store in New York City a few years ago for only $9.00. Good luck in your search and enjoy the stories!