Guy de Maupassant (1850–1893)
Born on August 5, 1850, in Normandy, France, and gone too soon by July 6, 1893, Guy de Maupassant lived fast and wrote faster. He packed a lifetime of stories—some scandalous, some sorrowful—into just over four decades, becoming one of the sharpest pens in 19th-century literature.
Maupassant didn't start off with dreams of literary stardom. He worked boring gover...