Stendhal
Stendhal (1783-1842) was the pen name of Marie-Henri Beyle, born in Grenoble, France, and generally regarded as one of the greatest 19th-century novelists. Le Rouge en Le Noir is his best-known work, and the one recommended on Five Books. For a biography of Stendhal’s life, there’s Jonathan Keates’s Stendhal; for a book that focuses more on his oeuvre, there’s Robert Alter’s critical biography, A Lion for Love (1986).
Books by Stendhal
“What I find so engaging is Julian’s mix of innocence and burning ambition to make his way. You don’t really blame him for doing what he does. As I say, it’s a wonderfully wicked tale. I mean, I should say, it all falls apart in the end because of the jealousies of the women Julian seduces. In the end he gets his comeuppance. Still, one can’t help sympathising with him as a character.” Read more...
The Best Historical Fiction Set in France
David Lawday, Biographer
“There is no writer like him, at all, anywhere. He is an utterly unique personality, not that you can qualify uniqueness. His letters are a kind of log of the self, and they’re very cleverly calibrated in this way to the correspondent…Stendhal wrote wonderful letters to his sister, which we might perhaps find patronising – she was younger than him and had less experience of the world – but you constantly get a sense of the value he puts on the presence of the other person. And correspondingly (if one can use that word) there is the sense that this other person might betray him, might not rise to the challenge of the value that he sets on them. And that so often happened. Many of Stendhal’s friends disappointed him. They weren’t Stendhalian enough, at crucial moments when he needed them to be.” Read more...
The best books on Great Letter Writers
Jonathan Keates, Biographer
Interviews where books by Stendhal were recommended
The best books on Great Letter Writers, recommended by Jonathan Keates
Queen Victoria was anything but Victorian and Lord Byron was more vulnerable than we think, says writer Jonathan Keates – who considers emails a poor substitute for a hand-written correspondence.
The Best Historical Fiction Set in France, recommended by David Lawday
Historical fiction offers us emotional insight into impactful historic events and an immersive sense of time and place, says David Lawday, the longtime Economist foreign correspondent and author of a new novel set during the Siege of Paris in 1870. Here he highlights five of the best historical novels set in France of centuries past.
Five of the Best European Classics, recommended by David Campbell
Europe may be made up of many cultures but its component parts share an artistic and literary sensibility, says Everyman’s Library publisher David Campbell. Here, he recommends five European classics that everyone should read at least once in their life, including “the greatest novel ever written” and some lesser-known masterpieces.
