'Have you read de Maupassant?s '?tude sur Gustave Flaubert', preface to Bouvard et P?cuchet?from which I quote above? It is a most illuminating business, & one of the best bits of general literary criticism that I know of.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'I took up de Maupassant to inspire me into a new theme; got one in about 5 minutes, & in an hour had arrived at the details. But it is too new to work at tonight.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'Maupassant never meant as much to her as Flaubert, or as Proust. She was reading collections of Maupassant's stories in mid-winter at Bowen's Court when she wrote to Virginia Woolf:
"I suppose he had sharp sense but really rather a boring mind. You soon get to know his formula, but there is always the fascination: it's like watching someone do the same card trick over and over again. I did feel the fascination so strongly that I wondered if I were getting brutalised myself. There is a particularly preposterous story called 'Yvette'...."'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Bowen Print: Book
'Gissing, probably more than any of his contemporaries, knew well the main trends of European literature at that time, for he continued to read widely in both French and German, as well as English. During the eighteen-eighties, he re-read George Sand and much of Balzac; read Zola for the first time; purchased cheap German editions of Turgenev and read them all; was famiiar with Daudet, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and later de Maupassant; and read Ibsen as his work became available and in the late eighties saw his plays when they were performed for the first time in London'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gissing Print: Book
'I have corrected all the proofs of The Old Wives Tale — 578pp. I am sure Tertia is wrong about those two chapters. I deliberately lowered the tension in the last part of the book, in obedience to a theory which objects to violent climaxes as a close; and now I have done it, I don’t know that I am quite satisfied. I know the public will consider the fourth part rather tame and flat, if not dull. And I am not sure whether I don’t slightly share this view. This is annoying.... I read Un Vie again (than which I meant to try and go one better) and was most decidedly disappointed in it. Lacking in skill.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'My humble apology for not thanking you before for the volume of verses. I share your
opinion of Maupassant.The man is a great artist who sees the essential in everything.
He is not a great poet,—perhaps no poet at all, yet I like his verses, I like them
immensely'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
