Bel Ami: A Ladies' Man

by Guy de Maupassant

Overview

An ambitious man ascends the ranks of French society through a series of duplicitous affairs in this nineteenth–century novel of greed, sex, and power.

A journalist and former cavalry officer in French Algeria, Georges Duroy is young, handsome, and ruthlessly cunning. Born to humble parents in Normandy, Duroy acquires inside knowledge of Parisian society and politics through his friendship with Madeleine Forestier, the wife of a former comrade. Forestier helps Duroy attain status and professional success by leveraging her contacts and writing some of his articles. They marry soon after, only for her to later become his nemesis.

A vividly rendered portrait of bourgeois capitalism under the Third Republic, Bel Ami is a timeless tale of corruption and shameless manipulation. First published in 1885, it established Guy de Maupassant’s reputation as one of France’s great novelists.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781504084543
Publisher:	Open Road Media
Publication date:	04/11/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	381
Sales rank:	137,897
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Guy de Maupassant was a nineteenth-century French author, remembered as a master of the short story form, who depicted human lives, destinies, and social forces in disillusioned and often pessimistic terms. He was a protégé of Gustave Flaubert, and his stories are characterized by economy of style and efficient, seemingly effortless dénouements. Born in 1850 at the late–sixteenth century Château de Miromesnil, de Maupassant was the first son of Laure Le Poittevin and Gustave de Maupassant, who both came from prosperous bourgeois families. Until the age of thirteen, de Maupassant lived with his mother at Étretat in Normandy. The Franco-Prussian War broke out soon after his graduation from college in 1870, and he enlisted as a volunteer. In his later years he developed a constant desire for solitude, an obsession for self-preservation, and a fear of death and paranoia of persecution. In 1892, de Maupassant attempted suicide. He was committed to the private asylum of Esprit Blanche at Passy, in Paris, where he died in 1893.