Guy de Maupassant (1850 - 1893)
Parent categories: 1800s literature - French literature - fantastic literature
Biography
Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (5 August 1850 – 6 July 1893) was a popular 19th-century French writer. He is one of the fathers of the modern short story. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_de_Maupassant [Sept 2005]
La Maison Tellier (1881) - Guy de Maupassant
La Maison Tellier (1881) is a short story, one of the early works of Guy de Maupassant.The names of the girls on the first floor were Fernande, Raphaele, and Rosa, the Jade. As the staff was limited, madame had endeavored that each member of it should be a pattern, an epitome of the feminine type, so that every customer might find as nearly as possible the realization of his ideal. Fernande represented the handsome blonde; she was very tall, rather fat, and lazy; a country girl, who could not get rid of her freckles, and whose short, light, almost colorless, tow-like hair, like combed-out hemp, barely covered her head.
Raphaele, who came from Marseilles, played the indispensable part of the handsome Jewess, and was thin, with high cheekbones, which were covered with rouge, and black hair covered with pomatum, which curled on her forehead. Her eyes would have been handsome, if the right one had not had a speck in it. Her Roman nose came down over a square jaw, where two false upper teeth contrasted strangely with the bad color of the rest.
Rosa was a little roll of fat, nearly all body, with very short legs, and from morning till night she sang songs, which were alternately risque or sentimental, in a harsh voice; told silly, interminable tales, and only stopped talking in order to eat, and left off eating in order to talk; she was never still, and was active as a squirrel, in spite of her embonpoint and her short legs; her laugh, which was a torrent of shrill cries, resounded here and there, ceaselessly, in a bedroom, in the loft, in the cafe, everywhere, and all about nothing.
The two women on the ground floor, Lodise, who was nicknamed La Cocotte, and Flora, whom they called Balancoise, because she limped a little, the former always dressed as the Goddess of Liberty, with a tri-colored sash, and the other as a Spanish woman, with a string of copper coins in her carroty hair, which jingled at every uneven step, looked like cooks dressed up for the carnival. They were like all other women of the lower orders, neither uglier nor better looking than they usually are.
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See also: 1881 - Guy de Maupassant - French literature - prostitution in art and fiction
Le Horla (1887) - Guy de Maupassant
Le Horla (1887) - Guy de Maupassant
image sourced here.
Le Horla est une nouvelle fantastique de Guy de Maupassant écrite en 1887. Le Horla est le premier des contes que Maupassant a écrit.
Sous forme de journal, l'auteur nous rapporte ses hallucinations : il sent la présence d'un être en lui qu'il nomme le « horla ». Tout au long de la nouvelle, le doute s'installe quant à la folie du personnage principal, ou plutôt de son aliénation, en référence à l'emprise du horla. L'auteur est devenu fou alors qu'il écrivait cette nouvelle, sous l'emprise de morphine.
Un être invisible hante un personnage qui ne peut lui échapper ; une jeune morte réapparaît dans un château gardé par un étrange jardinier ; une main s'anime et tue l'homme qui la gardait chez lui comme un trophée... Voici le sujet de trois des sept nouvelles de ce recueil, sept nouvelles fascinantes où le lecteur, confronté à des faits insolites et captivé par l'art du conteur, sent parfois vaciller sa raison. --http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Horla [Sept 2005]
See also: Gothic - Gothic novel - demon - horror fiction - 1887