from the Introduction by Catriona Seth Though it does not enjoy the same status as in the English-speaking world, France''s tradition of short fiction is a proud one, with much debate around the generic borders of contes and nouvelles . Charles Perrault (1628-1703), with his 1697 Contes de ma mère l''Oye , gave defi ning characteristics to many renowned folk-tales and exercised considerable influence over European literature. Voltaire (1694-1778) was dismissive of stories like Zadig (1747) or Candide (1759). Now counted amongst his masterpieces, they have stood the test of time far better than the epic poetry or tragedies which he considered essential elements of his oeuvre. Diderot (1713-84) is another author whose shorter fiction - mainly circulated in manuscript form during his lifetime - enjoys a wide readership nowadays. The nineteenth century saw the publication of countless novellas and short stories, which often appeared in the press before being included in anthologies. Théophile Gautier (1811-72) composed numerous contes throughout his literary career, starting with La Cafetière in 1831. Baudelaire (1821-67) translated Edgar Allan Poe to critical acclaim.
The work of Alphonse Daudet (1840-97) - tales from Provence, Lettres de mon Moulin (1869), and stories based on events surrounding the Franco-Prussian War, Contes du lundi (1873) - shows signs of literary kinship with a writer like Guy de Maupassant (1850-93). Amongst their contemporaries, Anatole France (1844-1924), whose reputation has waned since his 1921 Nobel Prize, also enjoyed considerable popular success. As a story teller, none of them arguably outshines Maupassant, who had been schooled in literature by Flaubert, the author of Trois Contes and a close friend of his mother, née Laure Le Poittevin, and her brother Alfred, himself a poet. During his essential creative years, which span from 1880 (''Boule de Suif '') to 1890 (''The Olive Grove''; ''Idle Beauty''), Maupassant published more than three hundred contes and nouvelles as well as six novels. The provincial France of which he writes is the bruised republic emerging from the war of 1870-71, still smarting from the loss of Alsace and parts of Lorraine. Some stories have clear ties to the recent past and rely on precise chronological references. A sense of revenge underlies the challenge witnessed by two English travellers in ''A Duel'', though there is something entertaining in the structure. ''St Anthony'' and ''Mademoiselle Fifi '' offer a much darker take on encounters with the oppressor.
Other tales are not set in a particular period and many of the themes are timeless: human passions like revenge, ridicule, envy or fear turn ordinary individuals with mundane existences into the stuff of memorable anecdotes. Maupassant suggests atmospheres through a few careful lines and well-chosen details. His tales are often precisely situated geographically and involve unforgettable characters. They allow us to apprehend a condensed fragment of society. An effect of reality is achieved through the mention of proper names, of fictional but also historical figures, and allusions to places the reader can identify or could find in an atlas or an encyclopædia. The selection presented here allows us to range from Brittany to Corsica, or Paris to the Mediterranean coast, but also to North Africa or India. There are foreign landscapes like the sandhills south of Ouargla, ''one of the strangest tracts of country in the world''. Several tales, including arguably the most famous ones (''Boule de Suif '', ''The Horla'' and ''The House of Madame Tellier'') are set in the province in which Maupassant himself was born and brought up: Normandy.
Gisors, Gournay, Criquetot, Etretat, Tancarville, Bénouville, Yport, Fécamp are toponyms he would have heard throughout his life and places he would have known. ''I am a Norman, a true Norman,'' says Dr Marambot in ''Madame Husson''s Rose-King'', a claim Maupassant himself could have made. The protagonists of the tales are often types - a country doctor, an academician, a senator, a well-intentioned matron - or illustrations of psychological traits like the Corsican widow of Paolo Saverini who seeks vengeance. They are also individuals with names and physical features. In ''Mademoiselle Fifi '', the Prussian occupying forces in rural Normandy are rough in their actions and in the syllables of their names: day after day, Major Count von Falsberg damages the graceful marquetry table in the Ch'teau d''Uville. His second-in-command, Captain Baron von Kelweingstein, Lieutenant Otto von Grossling and second lieutenants Fritz Scheunauburg and Marquis Wilhelm von Eyrik would not be out of place, in onomastic terms, in an operetta. In direct opposition to the invaders, the local parish priest who gives shelter to the murderess rejoices in the radiant name of Chantavoine - literally ''Oats sing''. As this shows, the name of the character itself has, on occasion, particular significance.
Having boarded a coach out of Rouen, well-meaning but narrow-minded members of the local society are dismayed to find their ride shared by a woman of ill-repute whose ''nickname of Boule de Suif, ball of lard, tallow-keech'' may seem vulgar but is also emblematic of her generosity in sharing food. Césaire Isidore Brument and Prosper Napoléon Cornu are given their full identities as they stand trial. The ridicule of them being called after emperors - of the Romans and of the French - is made obvious by their physique, which is mercilessly delineated by the author, and by their occupations: pig breeder and publican. ''Brument was small and fat, with short arms and legs and a red, pimply face. His round head was set right down on his short, round body, without any sign of a neck.'' As to his adversary: ''Cornu was lean, of middle height, with abnormally long arms. His face was distorted, his jaw crooked, and he had a squint. [.
] His scanty, yellow hair was plastered close to his skull and gave his face a worn, soiled, damaged appearance, which was perfectly repulsive.'' There is nothing imperial here - except in the men''s desire to assert their power over another human being. Their rude features align with their behaviour. Though they are not judged with such severity in their comportment, the Maison Tellier ''houris'' too are executed in a few words. Take Raphaële, ''thin, with high cheek-bones plastered with rouge'', her ''oily black hair arranged in ringlets on her forehead'', or Flora, who ''was supposed to be a Spanish girl, with copper sequins dancing in her carroty hair''. As to Fernande, ''She was buxom, ran somewhat to fat, and had permanent freckles; her head was scantily covered with short, bleached hair, that looked like a combed-out tow.'' She represents the type of ''the handsome, strapping, pink and white country lass''. We range here from the stock character to how the Fécamp prostitutes depart from the ideal, and the artifices used in their makeup and coiffure.
Described with their flaws and foibles, Madame Tellier''s girls are not pretty but the ugliness in Maupassant''s world is often moving. The tales are like snapshots. They often take place over a short space of time or they juxtapose a before and an after, leaving us to gather together scraps of information and guess at what happened in the elliptical meantime. Different generations, classes or ethnicities are conjured up in a few words. Maupassant is of his time in depicting the relationship between master and servant, between the colonized and the imperialist, between the upper and lower classes. The same goes for the behaviour of men towards women. Male characters, even when happily married, go off to the brothel or have mistresses. Nobody thinks any worse of them even when they are pillars of the community, like Poulin, the ex-mayor of Fécamp, a regular at Madame Tellier''s establishment.
Their wives, sisters and daughters are not allowed the same freedom. Maupassant illustrates unsavoury human characteristics. Man is the worst of brutes. ''You are my property. I am the master - your master. I can make any demand I please upon you, and at my own time. The law is on my side,'' Count de Mascaret cruelly says to the Countess in ''Idle Beauty''. Violence against women is shown as a fact of life.
The rough justice of ''A Deal'' implies that anything can be bought and that most things can be taken. Everything has its price, even a wife or a child - Monsieur and Madame d''Hubières in ''In the Country'' want to carry off little Charlot Tuvache and end up instead with Jean Vallin. Nowhere are the cruel consequences of social conventions brought to the fore more vividly than in ''His Son''. The rapid copulation between the visitor and the young serving girl is clearly rape. Startled and frightened, she fights against her aggressor. She only gives in when she collapses, exhausted by the tussle. She is a victim in this, but also when, displaying conflicting sentiments, she despairs at the departure of her abuser. He leaves and forgets the whole thing for thirty years.
Only by chance does he discover that her life ended as a consequence of the unthinking actions of a man whose sense of entitlement is based on his gender and class. Seeing the wretch to whom the young woman - named Jeanne Kerradec, as we learn from the official records - gave birth, he asks himself two searching questions: ''Am I that creature''s father? Am I the murderer of his mother?'' There is no doubt that the answer to both is yes. The Academician, a man ''of standing and repute, of a sober and logical cast of mind'', sees himself in the idiot boy to whom he can do no goo.