Widger's Quotations from the Project Gutenberg Editions of the Works of Guy de

Maupassant, Guy de, 1850-1893Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
21K words
Chapters
3

Tags

English Originals Foreign Literature Literary GiantsHuman NatureComplex HumanitySocial CritiqueMasterpiecesEssay CollectionSatirical Style

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Widger's Quotations from the Project Gutenberg Editions of the Works of Guy de MaupassantAuthor: Maupassant, Guy de, 1850-1893,Language: English, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Jan 1, 2003

Editor's review

This is a collection of quotations drawn from the Project Gutenberg editions of Maupassant's works, a public-domain electronic text. It extracts sentences from Maupassant's novels and stories and arranges them in a compilation, letting readers quickly encounter his language and way of observing. For readers already familiar with Maupassant, it is an auxiliary volume to browse that recalls the originals; for those who have not read him, it is more a window than a substitute for the works themselves. Once quotations are removed from context, the irony, compassion, and cool narrative tone are compressed into short sentences, and readers should be aware of this limitation. It suits writing enthusiasts collecting a feel for language and serves as quotation material for classes or reading groups. Treat it as an index and a source of recollection, and return to the originals when a sentence interests you.

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Reading tips

  1. Read a few quotations to get the tone, then pick the works that interest you and return to the originals.
  2. Sort quotations by theme and observe Maupassant's recurring images and sentence patterns.
  3. Use it as an index of inspiration when writing, but check the original context before quoting.
  4. No need to read it through; keep it at hand for occasional browsing.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
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FAQ

Does this book contain Maupassant's complete works? No. It is a collection of quotations drawn from the Project Gutenberg editions of Maupassant's works, selecting only sentence fragments and not complete stories. To understand the full scope of Maupassant's narrative, you still need to read his novels or stories.
Does removing quotations from context affect understanding? It does. Maupassant's sentences often depend on plot and character situation, and when taken alone the layers of irony or compassion are simplified. Treat quotations as clues and return to the originals to confirm the context when something interests you.
Is it suitable for learning to write? Yes, but it is better as a reference for feel and sentence patterns than as a model template. Observe how Maupassant uses short sentences to create contrast and how he selects details, then use the originals to see where these sentences sit in the story.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Maupassant, Guy de, 1850-1893 Author

Guy de Maupassant (1850–1893) was a renowned French novelist. This library holds 69 of his works, including short-story collections, novels, and complete editions. His representative works include Une vie, Boule de Suif, Bel Ami, and multi-volume complete collections of his short stories and writings. Public information is limited, so his biographical details are not elaborated here; nevertheless, the works in this library show that he excelled at short stories while also writing well-structured novels. His short stories often capture turning points in ordinary lives and human weaknesses through calm, restrained narration, while his novels focus on social class, desire, and fate. His language is concise, his observation precise, and his endings forceful, and his influence on later short-story writing is profound.