About the Book: A Parisian Affair and Other Stories
Set in the Paris of society women, prostitutes and small-minded bourgeousie,
and the isolated villages of rural Normandy that de Maupassant knew as a child,
the thirty-three tales in this volume are among the most darkly humorous and
brilliant short stories in nineteenth-century literature. They focus on the
relationships between men and women, as in the poignant fantasy of A Parisian
Affair, between brothers and sisters, and between masters and servants. Through
these relationships, Maupassant explores the dualistic nature of the human
character and his stories reveal both nobility, civility and generosity, and, in
stories such as At