Stendhal - The Red and the Black & other works (11 books)

Marie-Henri Beyle (1783-1842), better known by his pen name STENDHAL, was a 19th-century French writer. Known for his attention to historical detail and acute analysis of his characters' psychology -- Nietzsche called him "France's last great psychologist" -- Stendhal is considered one of the earliest and foremost practitioners of realism.

THE RED AND THE BLACK [Le Rouge et le Noir] (1830) chronicles the attempts of a provincial young man, Julien Sorel, to rise socially beyond his modest upbringing through a combination of talent, hard work, deception, and hypocrisy. It is a lively, satirical picture of French Restoration society after Waterloo, riddled with corruption, greed, and ennui. The complex, sympathetic portrayal of Julien, the cold exploiter whose Machiavellian campaign is undercut by his own emotions, makes him Stendhal's most brilliant and human creation, and one of the greatest characters in European literature. André Gide said that the novel was ahead of its time, that it was a novel for readers in the 20th century.

LUCIEN LEUWEN (1835) was the second major novel by Stendhal but remained unfinished due to the political culture of the July Revolution in 1830 and for fear of being offensive to the July Monarchy. It was published posthumously in 1894.

THE CHARTERHOUSE OF PARMA [La Chartreuse de Parme] (1839) chronicles the adventures of the young and headstrong Italian nobleman Fabrice del Dongo who defies the wrath of his right-wing father and goes to fight for Napoleon. When his dreams of military glory are dashed, he becomes embroiled in a series of amorous exploits, fueled by his own impetuous nature and the political chicanery of his aunt and her wily lover. It is considered by many to be a truly revolutionary work: Honoré de Balzac considered it the most significant novel of his time, and Tolstoy's "War and Peace" was heavily influenced by Stendhal's treatment of the Battle of Waterloo.

Also included here is Stendhal's LIFE OF ROSSINI (1824), now more valued for its wide-ranging musical criticism than for its historical content, and his brief MEMOIRS OF AN EGOTIST (published posthumously in 1892). Of the latter, Erich Auerbach wrote: "His autobiographical works, despite the capricious and erratic 'egotism' of their style and manner, are far more closely, essentially, and concretely connected with the politics, sociology and economics of the period than are, for example, the corresponding works of Rousseau or Goethe; one feels that the great events of contemporary history affected Stendhal much more directly than they did the other two. . . Modern consciousness of reality began to find literary form for the first time precisely in Henri Beyle."


Unless otherwise noted, the following books are in PDF format, all of which are reprocessed scans with contents in bookmarks and accurate pagination:

* THE CHARTERHOUSE OF PARMA (Modern Library, 2000). Translated by Richard Howard. -- ePUB

* THE CHARTERHOUSE OF PARMA (Oxford World's Classics, 1997). Translated by Margaret Mauldon, with an Introduction and Notes by Roger Pearson.

* LIFE OF ROSSINI (Orion, 1970). Translated and annotated by Richard N. Coe.

* LUCIEN LEUWEN: Book I - The Green Huntsman (New Directions, 1950). Translated by Louise Varèse.

* LUCIEN LEUWEN: Book II - The Telegraph (New Directions, 1950). Translated by Louise Varèse.

* MEMOIRS OF AN EGOTIST (Horizon, 1975). Translated with an Introduction and Notes by David Ellis.

* RED AND BLACK (Norton Critical Edition, 1969). Translated and edited by Robert M. Adams.

* THE RED AND THE BLACK (Bantam Classics, 1958). Translated by Lowell Bair, with an Introduction by Clifton Fadiman.

* THE RED AND THE BLACK (Modern Library, 2003). Translated by Burton Raffel, with an Introduction by Diane Johnson.

* THE RED AND THE BLACK (Dover, 2004). Translated by Horace B. Samuel. -- ePUB

* THE RED AND THE BLACK (Oxford World's Classics, 1991). Translated by Catherine Slater, with an Introduction by Roger Pearson. -- PDF + ePUB