What classic short story by the French writer Guy de Maupassant concerns an invisible malevolent spirit that aims to take control over the narrator?
"and Henry James (""Paste""). Taking his cue from Balzac, Maupassant wrote comfortably in both the high-Realist and fantastic modes; stories and novels such as ""L'Héritage"" and ""Bel-Ami"" aim to recreate Third Republic France in a realistic way, whereas many of the short stories (notably ""Le Horla"" and ""Qui sait?"") describe apparently supernatural phenomena. The supernatural in Maupassant, however, is often implicitly a symptom of the protagonists' troubled minds; Maupassant was fascinated by the burgeoning discipline of psychiatry, and attended the public lectures of Jean-Martin Charcot between 1885 and 1886. Leo Tolstoy used Maupassant as the subject for one of his"
"while putting a handkerchief on his ear. Soon, his travel companions will learn that Belhomme is convinced that a beast has entered through his ear and is eating his brain. The trip will be poisoned by this old whiner who makes more and more horrible cries. But what is this mysterious beast that is gnawing at poor Belhomme, and how will their trip end? La Bête à Maît' Belhomme ""La Bête à Maît' Belhomme"" is a short story by French author Guy de Maupassant, published in 1885. ""La Bête à Maît' Belhomme"" is a short story written by Guy de"
"Guy de Maupassant Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (; ; 5 August 1850 – 6 July 1893) was a French writer, remembered as a master of the short story form, and as a representative of the naturalist school of writers, who depicted human lives and destinies and social forces in disillusioned and often pessimistic terms. Maupassant was a protégé of Gustave Flaubert and his stories are characterized by economy of style and efficient, effortless ""dénouements"" (outcomes). Many are set during the Franco-Prussian War of the 1870s, describing the futility of war and the innocent civilians who, caught up in"
"her mind to a man to whom she has opened other channels of communications."" In the script Questor copulates with a woman to obtain information that she is reluctant to impart. Due to complaints from NBC executives, this part of the script was never filmed. Michel Drach directed and co-wrote a 1982 French biographical film: ""Guy de Maupassant"". Claude Brasseur stars as the titular character. Guy de Maupassant Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (; ; 5 August 1850 – 6 July 1893) was a French writer, remembered as a master of the short story form, and as a representative"
"Mother Savage story as told by his friend Serval. Influenced by Gustave Flaubert, Guy de Maupassant writes in the realist style which focuses on objective reality and ""shows"" instead of ""tells"". The story is set during the winter of 1871 midway through the Franco-Prussian War in a quaint village in the French countryside. Snow covers the fields, and the forest lurks ominously, void of life. The countryside is dotted with small cottages emitting smoke from chimneys. Mother Savage ""Mother Savage"" (original title: ""La Mère Sauvage"") is a short story by the French realist writer Guy de Maupassant. It was first"
"as part of the inspiration for Val Lewton's 1944 film ""Mademoiselle Fifi"". Mademoiselle Fifi (short story) ""Mademoiselle Fifi"" is a short story by French writer Guy de Maupassant, published in 1882 in a collection of the same title. Like many of his short stories, such as ""Boule de Suif"" and ""Deux Amis"", the story is set during the Franco-Prussian War and explores themes of class barriers, contrasts between the French and German participants, and the pointlessness of the war. The story takes place in Normandy in the winter of 1870, in a fictional chateau which is being used as a"
"possessing the priest throughout the story. In this story, Gautier is indicating that possession in the materialistic world is a sin, or considered ""damnation"". Overall, Gautier's work emphasizes desires, dreams, and fantasies throughout. La Morte Amoureuse ""La Morte amoureuse"" (in ) is a short story written by Théophile Gautier and published in ""La Chronique de Paris"" in 1836. It tells the story of a priest named Romuald who falls in love with Clarimonde, a beautiful woman who turns out to be a vampire. The story opens with the elderly priest Romuald recounting the story of his first love, Clarimonde. On"
"is still the greatest happiness». That evening he starts a task constantly postponed, to store in his desk correspondence and memories of a lifetime. Moved to tears by all these old stories which come to mind, he looks horrified «the hideous and lonely old age and the coming infirmities». He shoots himself in the head. The theme of this story is that suicide can be caused by minor causes like solitude and boredom. Suicides (short story) ""Suicides"" is a short story by French writer Guy de Maupassant. It was originally published on 29 August 1880 in the French newspaper ""Le"
"Mademoiselle Fifi (short story) ""Mademoiselle Fifi"" is a short story by French writer Guy de Maupassant, published in 1882 in a collection of the same title. Like many of his short stories, such as ""Boule de Suif"" and ""Deux Amis"", the story is set during the Franco-Prussian War and explores themes of class barriers, contrasts between the French and German participants, and the pointlessness of the war. The story takes place in Normandy in the winter of 1870, in a fictional chateau which is being used as a headquarters by Prussian officers. The main characters of the story are quickly"
"Two Friends (short story) ""Deux amis"" or ""Two Friends"" is a short story by the French author Guy de Maupassant, published in 1882. The story is set in Paris during the Franco-Prussian War, when the city lay under siege. The story examines French bravery, German stereotypes and, unusually for Maupassant, discusses the nature and justification of war in the form of a conversation between the two protagonists. Algirdas Julien Greimas has famously analysed the text's semiotic features in ""Maupassant"" (1976). The story opens in Paris in January 1871, at the height of Siege of Paris, and introduces the main character,"
"Two Friends (short story) ""Deux amis"" or ""Two Friends"" is a short story by the French author Guy de Maupassant, published in 1882. The story is set in Paris during the Franco-Prussian War, when the city lay under siege. The story examines French bravery, German stereotypes and, unusually for Maupassant, discusses the nature and justification of war in the form of a conversation between the two protagonists. Algirdas Julien Greimas has famously analysed the text's semiotic features in ""Maupassant"" (1976). The story opens in Paris in January 1871, at the height of Siege of Paris, and introduces the main character,"
"La Bête à Maît' Belhomme ""La Bête à Maît' Belhomme"" is a short story by French author Guy de Maupassant, published in 1885. ""La Bête à Maît' Belhomme"" is a short story written by Guy de Maupassant. It was first published in the newspaper Gil Blas on September 22, 1885, before being reprised in the ""Monsieur Parent"" collection. When one is a Norman peasant, it is an adventure to go to town by stagecoach. That day, in the Le Havre stagecoach, there is the schoolmaster, the priest, Maître Rabot, Maître Caniveau and Maître Belhomme, a tall skinny man who moans"
"shocked and horrified, and attempts to flee from the city, at first becoming hopelessly lost, but eventually finding his way and never looking back, searching after oblivion far beyond the accursed city. A Night in Malnéant ""A Night in Malnéant"" is a horror short story written by Clark Ashton Smith and originally published in 1933 in the short story collection The Double Shadow and Other Fantasies. An unnamed narrator, weary from his aimless wandering across the remote cities and roads of the old world, comes across a sinister gothic city lying just beyond a gray, colossal bridge called Malneant. Despite"
"Suicides (short story) ""Suicides"" is a short story by French writer Guy de Maupassant. It was originally published on 29 August 1880 in the French newspaper ""Le Gaulois"". On 17 April 1883, it was published in ""Gil Blas"" under the pseudonym Maufrigneuse, and by other three periodicals, before being republished in the short story collection ""Les Sœurs Rondoli"" in 1884. The narrator finds a letter from a man who killed himself officially «without reason». This man of fifty-seven describes his life: thirty years of boredom, always repeated gestures and loneliness. Suffering from stomach pain, he can not eat much «what"
"communion of her niece Constance. Her regular patrons are taken aback when they discover the whorehouse is ""closed"" without explanation that weekend. They finally discover the announcement explaining the reason. Meanwhile, Joseph Rivet, Madame Tellier's brother, is entertaining a more sinister idea far beyond the religious festivity... There have been a number of important adaptations of the short story: The French musical group La Maison Tellier derives its name from the Maupassant story. La Maison Tellier (short story) ""La Maison Tellier"" is a story by Guy de Maupassant published in 1881 in a series of stories under the same title."
"permission, by author C. B. Carter) Useless Beauty ""Useless Beauty"" is a short story by the French writer Guy de Maupassant. The story was featured in ""Original Short Stories Volume 6 of 13"" published by Alfred A. Knopf in New York in 1926. Useless Beauty is the story of Countess de Mascaret and her husband, Count de Mascaret. During their eleven-year marriage they’ve had seven children and the countess has fallen deaf to pointless flatter from her husband. The Countess feels as though her husband loves her only because he asserts claim over her youth and her life, over her"
"of gnomes, the demons of the heaven of Gad, Almousin, Gibor, Jehosua, Evam, Zariatnatmik, Come, Come, Come!"" The incantation invokes several divine names, such as Adonai, Eloim, and Jehova, and references the Salamander, Sylphs, and Gnomes, which are the alchemical representatives of Fire, Air, and Earth respectively, as described by Paracelsus. The ""mystery of the salamander"" is also referenced in other short stories. The Case of Charles Dexter Ward The Case of Charles Dexter Ward is a short horror novel (51,500 words) by American writer H. P. Lovecraft, written in early 1927, but not published during the author's lifetime. Set"
"including scarring from a large horn-shaped object and bruises in the shape of hoof-prints on their backs. Manton describes the unnamable in the closing passage of the story: ""The Unnamable"" has been loosely adapted into two motion pictures. Both films were written and directed by Jean-Paul Ouellette and have only a tangential connection to the original short story: ""The Unnamable"" (1988) and """" (1993). A closer adaption is a 2011 short film by Sascha Renninger, ""Shadow of the Unnamable"". The Unnamable (short story) ""The Unnamable"" is a horror short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft. It was written in"
"unconsciously inviting the supernatural being aboard the boat to haunt his home. All around him, he senses the presence of a being that he calls the ""Horla"". The torment that the Horla causes is first manifested physically: The narrator complains that he suffers from ""an atrocious fever"", and that he has trouble sleeping. He wakes up from nightmares with the chilling feeling that someone is watching him and ""kneeling on [his] chest."" Throughout the short story, the main character's sanity, or rather, his feelings of alienation, are put into question as the Horla progressively dominates his thoughts. Initially, the narrator"
"fable-like tale about a despondent young man named Raphaël de Valentin who finds an animal skin which promises great power and wealth. He obtains these things, but loses the ability to manage them. In the end, his health fails and he is consumed by his own confusion. Balzac meant the story to bear witness to the treacherous turns of life, its ""serpentine motion"". In 1833 Balzac released ""Eugénie Grandet"", his first best-seller. The tale of a young lady who inherits her father's miserliness, it also became the most critically acclaimed book of his career. The writing is simple, yet the"
"Avatar (short story) Avatar, first published in 1856, is a ""Fantastique"" 19th century short story by French writer Théophile Gautier. Octave de Saville pines for Lithuanian Countess Prascovie Labinska. Alas, she rejects his advances, and remains faithful to her husband, Count Olaf. Octave slowly drifts towards apathy, and his soul gradually deserts him. Octave's friends and relatives, who fail to understand the source of his illness, resort to a peculiar and rather mysterious physician who spent several years in India leading an ascetic life. The physician, Balthazar Cherbonneau, offers to swap Octave's mind with Olaf's using magic he learned in"
"but he can inhabit those illusions, along with their powers. Indomitable (short story) ""Indomitable"" is a fantasy short story by Terry Brooks in his ""Shannara"" series, and takes place two years after the events in ""The Wishsong of Shannara."" It was first published in the 2003 collection ""Legends II"". Two years after the events chronicled in ""The Wishsong of Shannara"", Kimber Boh finds Jair Ohmsford working in his parents' inn while they are away. She tells him of a dream that has been haunting Cogline where the shade of the fallen Druid Allanon comes to him and tells him that"
"of the character Madame Psychosis is an intentional malapropism of metempsychosis. Guy de Maupassant's story ""Le docteur Héraclius Gloss"" (1875) is a fable about metempsychosis. In Marcel Proust's famous first paragraph from ""In Search of Lost Time"", the narrator compares his separation from the subject of a book to the process of metempsychosis. In Robert Montgomery Bird's fiction novel ""Sheppard Lee Written by Himself"" (1836) the protagonist is a serial identity thief by way of metempsychosis. The eponymous Archy of Don Marquis's ""archy and mehitabel"" poems is a cockroach with the transmigrated soul of a human vers libre poet. Metempsychosis"
"young woman's submission of her body. The grisette as part of the bohemian sub-culture was a frequent character in French fiction of the time. She is personified as Rigolette in Eugene Sue's ""The Mysteries of Paris"", as Fantine in Victor Hugo's ""Les Misérables"" and Marthe in George Sand's ""Horace"", as well as in the protagonist in Alfred de Musset's ""Mademoiselle Mimi Pinson: Profil de grisette"". Notable examples in British and American fiction are Trilby in George Du Maurier's novel of the same name, and Marie in Edgar Allan Poe's short story ""The Mystery of Marie Roget"". Du Maurier based large"
"Pierre’s departure on an oceanliner. Thus the novel is organised around the unwelcome appearance of a truth (Jean’s illegitimacy), its suppression for the sake of family continuity and the acquisition of wealth, and the expulsion from the family of the legitimate son. Pierre et Jean Pierre et Jean is a naturalist or psycho-realist work written by Guy de Maupassant in Étretat in his native Normandy between June and September 1887 . This was Maupassant’s shortest novel. It appeared in three instalments in the Nouvelle Revue and then in volume form in 1888, together with the essay “Le Roman” [“The Novel”]."
"helping win justice for Alfred Dreyfus, a French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish background, who had falsely been accused of treason. Guy de Maupassant (1850–1893) moved to Paris in 1881 and worked as a clerk for the French Navy, then for the Ministry of Public Education, as he wrote short stories and novels at a furious pace. He became famous, but also became ill and depressed, then paranoid and suicidal, dying at the asylum of ""Saint-Esprit"" in Passy in 1893. Other writers who made a mark in the Paris literary world of the Third Republic's ""Belle Époque"" included Anatole France"
"Mother Savage ""Mother Savage"" (original title: ""La Mère Sauvage"") is a short story by the French realist writer Guy de Maupassant. It was first published on 3 March 1884. Two men are out hunting in the French countryside, the narrator and Serval. The latter tells the story of the Savage family: the father was killed by police with a gunshot to the head. Serval goes on to tell the story of Old Mother Savage and her son, who volunteered at age 33 to fight in the war. Mother Savage, isolated far from the village and ""known to have money"" is"
"to his time with Clarimonde as being dream-like. Nocturnal demons are associated with erotic dreams and the time that Romauld shares with Clarimonde in his dream-space is certainly erotic. Roumald may not be dreaming of living in Clarimonde's world, but rather, Clarimonde may be inventing Romauld to satisfy her own desires. In this case, Romauld is the nightmare and not Clarimonde. The plot of Théophile Gautier's French, romantic short story, ""La Morte Amoureuse"" focuses on the idea that love can overcome death. For example, when the protagonist, Romuald, is called to give last rites to a great courtesan who has"
"has asked the doctor to be the godfather to his son. On 2 January, they set off to the church. Le Baptême (short story) ""Le Baptême"" is a short story by the French author Guy de Maupassant. The story was published in 1885. ""Le Baptême"" is a short story written by Guy de Maupassant. It was first published in the newspaper Gil Blas on 13 January 1885, before being reprised in the ""Monsieur Parent"" collection. This text should not be confused with a short story of the same name which was published in 1884. This story begins with the following"
"The Alchemist (short story) ""The Alchemist"" is a short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. It was written in 1908, when Lovecraft was 17 or 18, and first published in the November 1916 issue of the ""United Amateur"". The story is recounted by the protagonist, Count Antoine de C-, in the first person. Hundreds of years ago, Antoine's noble ancestor was responsible for the death of a dark wizard, Michel Mauvais. The wizard's son, Charles le Sorcier, swore revenge on not only him but all his descendants, cursing them to die on reaching the age of 32. The protagonist"
"Le Baptême (short story) ""Le Baptême"" is a short story by the French author Guy de Maupassant. The story was published in 1885. ""Le Baptême"" is a short story written by Guy de Maupassant. It was first published in the newspaper Gil Blas on 13 January 1885, before being reprised in the ""Monsieur Parent"" collection. This text should not be confused with a short story of the same name which was published in 1884. This story begins with the following words: The story is about an old navy doctor who lives in a country house near Pont-l'Abbé. His gardener, Kérandec,"
"1983. This horrible witch, feared by the fishermen, lays a curse on the Bowley family. A ""mystical and fantastic"" novel, ""La Pâleur et le Sang"" includes the ' among the mysterious and almost diabolical forces that assail the island of Vindilis. This old woman is portrayed as having ""magical and evil powers"", and as threatening with reprisals those characters who offend her. Her murder is one of the causes of the misfortunes that hit the island. A ' also appears in ""Absinthes & Démons"", a collection of short stories by Amber Dubois published in 2012. In Jean Teulé's novel ""Fleur"
"letter of protest against the tower's construction, written to the Minister of Public Works. Maupassant also wrote under several pseudonyms such as Joseph Prunier, Guy de Valmont, and Maufrigneuse (which he used from 1881 to 1885). 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 caused by the syphilis he had contracted in his youth. It has been suggested that his brother, Hervé, also suffered from syphilis and the disease may have been congenital. On 2 January 1892, Maupassant tried to commit suicide by cutting"