Maupassant: Masterpieces Volume 1
Appearances deceive everyone
StorylineEight stories follow desire, reputation and social ambition through glittering rooms and occupied villages, from The Necklace and Boule de Suif to Miss Harriet and Moonlight.
“She had no dresses, no jewels, nothing.”
Fine manners. Dangerous appetites.
- EditionMulti-story collection
- Estimated reading time152–190 minutesWhole collection · stories only
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At a glance
- Work
- Multi-story collection
- Author
- Guy de Maupassant
- Format
- Paperback
Stories in this collection
8 stories
- The NecklaceA borrowed jewel offers a clerk’s wife one dazzling evening in the world she longs to enter.
- The False GemsA husband’s certainty about his happy marriage is disturbed by his wife’s apparently inexpensive jewelry.
- Boule de SuifStranded travelers test the generosity of a woman they consider beneath them during the Franco-Prussian War.
- Two FriendsTwo fishing companions try to reclaim a familiar pleasure while Paris is under siege.
- Mademoiselle FifiAn occupying officer’s contempt turns an evening’s entertainment into a confrontation with unexpected courage.
- Miss HarrietA painter recalls an English traveler whose reserve conceals a fierce and lonely emotional life.
- The Piece of StringA thrifty peasant picks up a scrap of string and discovers how stubborn a rumor can become.
- MoonlightA stern priest’s certainties meet their challenge during a moonlit walk through the countryside.
THE EDITOR’S TAKE
Good manners are rarely the whole story.
Why “Maupassant: Masterpieces Volume 1”?
- The Necklace, Boule de Suif and Miss Harriet offer very different views of social life.
- Eight stories put desire, reputation and professed virtue under a wonderfully sharp light.
A question to savor
Which story most changes your understanding of the difference between social standing and character?
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