Pierre and Jean - Hardcover

Maupassant, Guy De

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0883555786 ISBN 13: 9780883555781

Publisher: Hyperion Pr, 1978

Synopsis

The fraternal love that Pierre Roland feels for his younger brother Jean has always been tinged with jealousy. But when a lawyer arrives at the house of their parents, to declare that an old family friend has bequeathed his entire fortune to Jean, this envy rapidly becomes an all-consuming force. Despising himself for the hate that he feels, Pierre roams the seaport of Le Havre alone, desperate to come to terms with his brother's success. As he walks through the streets, however, one thought dominates his mind. Why was he not left a share of the friend's estate? Vivid, ironical and emotionally profound, "Pierre and Jean" is considered Maupassant's greatest novel - an intensely personal story of suspicion, jealousy and family love.

About this title

About the Author

Guy de Maupassant was born in Normandy in 1850. At his parents’ separation he stayed with his mother, who was a friend of Flaubert. As a young man he was lively and athletic, but the first symptoms of syphilis appeared in the late 1870s. By this time Maupassant had become Flaubert’s pupil in the art of prose. On the publication of the first short story to which he put his name, ‘Boule de suif’, he left his job in the civil service and his temporary alliance with the disciples of Zola at Médan, and devoted his energy to professional writing. In the next eleven years he published dozens of articles, nearly three hundred stories and six novels, the best known of which are A Woman’s Life, Bel-Ami and Pierre and Jean. He led a hectic social life, lived up to his reputation for womanizing and fought his disease. By 1889 his friends saw that his mind was in danger, and in 1891 he attempted suicide and was committed to an asylum in Paris, where he died two years later.

Language Notes

Text: English, French (translation)

About this edition

• Publisher: Hyperion Pr
• Publication date: 1978
• ISBN 10: 0883555786
• ISBN 13: 9780883555781
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224