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Introduction and Notes by James Fowler, Senior Lecturer in French, University of Kent. The story chronicles journalist Georges Duroy's corrupt rise to power from a poor ex-NCO to one of the most successful men in Paris, most of which he achieves by manipulating a series of powerful, intelligent, and wealthy mistresses. AUTHOR: Athough Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893) wrote novels, plays, poems and travel journals, it is for his short stories that he is remembered. His output was phenomenal, writing over three hundred short stories in the decade from 1880-1890. These works are rated alongside those of Turgenev, Chekhov, Poe and James, and were highly influential on those that followed him, such as Kipling, Conrad and O. Henry.