Novel
The Red and the Black
Le Rouge et le Noir
Stendhal · 1830
Opening lines
La petite ville de Verrières peut passer pour l'une des plus jolies de la Franche-Comté.
The little town of Verrières may be considered one of the prettiest in the Franche-Comté.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
Julien Sorel, son of a carpenter in Verrières, a small town in Franche-Comté, is an ambitious boy who knows the New Testament by heart in Latin and admires Napoleon. M. de Rênal, the mayor, takes him on as tutor to his children, and Julien becomes Mme de Rênal's lover. He then enters the seminary at Besançon, before leaving for Paris as secretary to the Marquis de La Mole, whose daughter, Mathilde, he sets out to win.
Context
The novel was published in November 1830 by Levavasseur, in two volumes dated 1831, under the subtitle Chronique du XIXe siècle. It was completed at the time of the July Revolution, and its author drew on court reports in the press. The narrative is divided into two books: the provinces, from Verrières to Besançon, then Paris and high aristocratic society, in the France of the last years of the Restoration.
Who it is for
A long novel in two parts; the closing of careers to young men without birth under the Restoration sheds light on its hero.
Prizes and reception
The English writer Somerset Maugham ranked it among the ten greatest novels ever written.
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