Guy de Maupassant
1850-1893
Other Works
"A Piece of String"
"The Umbrella"
A Tortured Life Guy de Maupassant was born in northwestern France to an upper-middle-class
family. When the family fortune ran out, he was forced into tiring work as a government clerk, which he pursued from 1872 to 1882, until he achieved success as a writer. Although his writing eventually
brought him modest wealth, Maupassant led a tortured life. From 1877 until his death, he suffered from an incurable disease, experiencing occasional hallucinations. As the infection spread to his brain, Maupassant became insane and died in a Paris asylum at age 42.
Writing from Experience Maupassant may be the best-known French writer outside France. His
hundreds of stories excel in portraying everyday life, and his subjects reflect his background. He wrote about peasants in the countryside near his home, government clerks, upper-class society—and madness. One critic has noted that Maupassant's strength is not his subject matter but his style, which is clear and to the point: he had the "remarkable ability to suggest character with one deft stroke of the pen—a single phrase, a couple of well-chosen verbs." A biographer of Maupassant claims that the "brevity and brisk pace" of his writing gave the short story genre "both a worthy literary form and a new popularity."
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