Possessed of a voracious sexual appetite, bitter and frequently disillusioned by the history of his country and the foibles of its people is not a description that does justice to the tortured soul that was Guy de Maupassant. He was also a compassionate and deeply patriotic man, volunteering to fight for his country in the Franco-Prussian War at the age of 20 and again saw action reporting on the French campaign in Tunisia in 1881. Unfortunately these irreconcilable internal conflicts eventually led to syphilis, hallucination, attempted suicide, madness and an early death in an asylum at the age of 43-most of which horror was self-predicted in 'The Horla'. During his short life, however, he wrote over 300 short stories-as well as 6 novels and the vast canon of his original and unusual tales placed him at the pinnacle of world literature as the master storyteller. The stories presented here are: A Piece of String, The Chair mender, The Diamond Necklace, The Little Soldiers, Two Fishermen, Boule de Suif (Fatball), Madame Tellier's House, The Dowry, A Coward, The Horla.
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