Storytelling has enjoyed a long and glorious tradition in France, perhaps reaching its zenith in the nineteenth century. Influenced by the work of foreign writers in the genre, including E. T. A. Hoffmann, Edgar Allan Poe (translated by Baudelaire), and Turgenev (translated by Mérimée), such French authors as Daudet, Maupassant, Flaubert, and Zola brought the short story to a high degree of perfection.
This volume brings together six outstanding tales, each by a different author, originally published between 1829 and 1886. Representing a variety of tenth-century literary trends (Romanticism, Realism, Naturalism, and even a foretaste of Symbolism), the stories include Mateo Falcone (by Prosper Mérimée), Sylvie (by Gérard de Nerval), Alphonse Daudet's La mule du Pape (The Pope's Mule), Gustave Flaubert's Hérodias (Herodias), Emile Zola's L'attaque du moulin (The Attack on the Mill), and Guy de Maupassant's Mademoiselle Perle (Miss Pearl). Stanley Appelbaum has provided accurate English translations (printed to align line-for-line with the French texts), an informative introduction, and notes on each selection.
This inexpensive edition provides a wonderful opportunity for students of French language and literature, as well as anyone who loves the short story, to sample a carefully chosen selection of the very best in the genre.