Maupassant!

Guy de Maupassant was born on the 5th of August, 1850. Whether it was at the stately Chateau de Miromesnil, as it is probable, or at Fecamp as it is possible or at Stotteville, as the death certificate erroneously declares, or even at Yvetot, as one biographer claims,is of little consequence . We need only remember that he was born in Normandy and that he spent his entire youth there

The elder son of Laure and Gustave de Maupassant. His mother and maternal uncle were intimate friends of the author of Madame Bovary and that factor was to be of utmost importance in his early literary development. Until the age of thirteen he studied under the direction of his mother, who was a highly lettered person and who transmitted to him, among other things, a strong enthusiasm for Shakespeare. There followed a brief period of study at the seminary of Yvetot, culminating in his expulsion as an insubordinate pupil. He was subsequently sent to the lycee at Rouen, where he had as a teacher Louis Bouilhet, who, with Flaubert, was to give direction to an increasing interest in literary expression. In 1880 after abandoning the pseudonyms under which he had contributed a few poems, tales, and studies to various periodicals, he suddenly burst into full glory with the publication of Boule de Suif (Ball of Fat). That story first appeared in a collective volume, Les Soirees de Medan. The columns of the most popular newspapers were immediately opened to Maupassant and practically overnight he became one of the highest-paid writers of the day. Ten years of poverty had come to an end. With royalties from his first volume of short stories, La Maison Tellier (Madame Tellier’s Establishment), he could build his villa on the Normandy Coast and from the proceeds of his novel Bel-Ami he could purchase a yacht.

Immediately after “Ball of Fat” , Maupassant devoted himself exclusively to literary activities of herculean proportions. Within a decade he had produced the incredible total of nearly three hundred short stories, a half-dozen novels and several other volumes, not to mention over two hundred miscellaneous articles, most of which have not appeared in book form.

In December 1891,when it was clear that his mind was disintegrating from syphilis, Maupassant tried to cut his throat with a razor, only to be thwarted by his servant, Fran~ois. Another attempt in January was also unsuccessful. Fran~oissaved him again, but he could not save him from a worse fate, internment in a mental institution, where he remained until his death eighteen months later at the age of forty-three.