Guy de Maupassant

French writer (1850-1893)

Fame80.6
Momentum7.3
France rank#36

Source-basedRising

Fame80.6
Momentum7.3
France rank#36
Writers rank#62
Wikipedia61.2K

Lived 1850–1893, aged 43France

France WritersWriter / Author

Wikipedia
103 languages
Cross-language footprint
Rank in France
#36
Writers
Era
1850–1893
Aged 43
Known for
Bel Ami
2012

Summary

Updated 2026-08-23

He turned the short story into a blade — quick, cold, and final. Maupassant's 300 tales strip human pretense down to the bone, most of them written in a single white-hot decade before syphilis destroyed his mind at forty-two.

Biography

About

Born in Normandy in 1850, he fell under the wing of Gustave Flaubert, who drilled him in ruthless economy until every word earned its place. "Boule de Suif" arrived in 1880 — a story of a prostitute and hypocrites on a carriage fleeing the Franco-Prussian War — and became his calling card. Over the next decade he produced 300 short stories, six novels, three travel books, and a volume of verse, most of it steeped in the naturalist school: disillusioned, pessimistic, unflinching about the social forces that grind ordinary people down. The war stories, drawn from the 1870s conflict, caught civil…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Guy de Maupassant

Guy de Maupassant

saidundated

I entered literary life as a meteor, and I shall leave it like a thunderbolt.

— As quoted in "Guy De Maupassant : A Study" by Pol Neveux, in Original Short Stories

Guy de Maupassant

saidundated

There are in France some fifty thousand young men of good birth and fairly well off who are encouraged to live a life of complete idleness.

— As quoted in Contemporary Portraits (1920) by Frank Harris, p. 263

Guy de Maupassant

saidundated

I have come to the conclusion that the bed comprehends our whole life; for we were born in it, we live in it, and we shall die in it.

— "The Bed"

Guy de Maupassant

saidundated

Let us protest and let us be angry, let us be indignant, or let us be enthusiastic, Schopenhauer has marked humanity with the seal of his disdain and of his disenchantment.

— "Beside Schopenhauer's Corpse"

Guy de Maupassant

saidundated

Great minds that are healthy are never considered geniuses, while this sublime qualification is lavished on brains that are often inferior but are slightly touched by madness.

— "The Englishman of Etretat"

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

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