Guy de Maupassant was one of the most important French writers of the nineteenth century, remembered above all for his remarkable mastery of the short story. He was born on August 5, 1850, in Fécamp, into a family of provincial nobility. His parents, whose temperaments were entirely incompatible, eventually separated, and he remained with his mother, who nevertheless passed on to him her love of literature and the arts.
Because of his rebellious and unconventional character, he was expelled from the religious college he attended and continued his studies at the lycée in Rouen. In 1870 he began studying law, but in the same year the Franco-Prussian War broke out and he was conscripted into military service. After a year he managed to obtain his discharge, and his father secured him a clerical position at the Ministry of the Navy, a job he detested and would later satirize in his writings.
Strong, athletic, and handsome, Maupassant was a young dandy with numerous romantic conquests. Encouraged by his mother's friend, Gustave Flaubert, he began writing seriously and soon became part of the literary circles of Paris. In 1880 his celebrated short story *Boule de Suif* (*Ball of Fat*) was published and met with immediate success, establishing his reputation overnight.
During the following decade he wrote six novels and nearly three hundred short stories, becoming famous throughout France and gaining entry into high society. He lived extravagantly, enjoying numerous love affairs and spending his considerable earnings with little restraint.
Both his relentless literary activity and his turbulent lifestyle gradually undermined his health. From 1887 onward he suffered from neuralgia, hallucinations, and an increasing sense of persecution that drove him into constant travel and restlessness. It appears that he had contracted syphilis at a young age, although some biographers have suggested that the illness may have had a hereditary component, as his brother died of the same disease in a psychiatric institution in 1889.
Following this tragedy, Maupassant's mental condition deteriorated rapidly. Terrified of losing his reason, he turned to drugs and hallucinogens, but his fears ultimately became reality. In 1891 he attempted suicide and was confined to a private asylum, where he died in 1893, never recovering his sanity.
