Guy de Maupassant (1850--1893), after serving in the Franco-Prussian War, became a close friend of Flaubert and his circle. He wrote hundreds of short stories as well as novels and verse. In his later years, he suffered from mental illness, and he died in an asylum. Joachim Neugroschel's translations include definitive renderings of Kafka, Mann, Racine, Moli re, Bataille, and many others; his most recent book is No Star Too Beautiful- An Anthology of Yiddish Stories from 1832 to the Present. He has been awarded the French-American Foundation Translation Prize, the Goethe House/PEN Translation Prize (twice), and Guggenheim and NEA grants. He lives in Belle Harbor, New York. Adam Gopnik is the author of Paris to the Moon (available from Random House Trade Paperbacks). From the Hardcover edition.