Best Short Stories / Les Meilleurs Contes (A Dual-Language Book) (English and French Edition) Publisher: Dover Publications

Guy de Maupassant was a master writer and I always loved his novels. His short stories are just as good. He was a keen observer of human nature particularly the lower side of human nature. His most riveting stories were often on the theme of the Franco-Prussian war, but never directly about war, rather how it affected people indirectly. Clearly de Maupassant thought the Germans to be uncivilized brutes, as in "Mademoiselle Fifi."The foreword is really exceptional and is worth reading to really understand de Maupassant's trajectory of fame and the context of these stories written in a short period of time from 1980 to 1986 and arranged chronologically. The translation is useful to have but a few words could have been better chosen since French words are very nuanced.

Great Stories. Liked the Necklace(La Parure) and Boule de Suif, but most of the stories are good and the French translatation is great for intermediate students and on up. La Parure is on the CD "Nouvelles" Lu par Robin Renucci. It's great to hear, read, and understand the French.However, the written French and spoken French have some différences.

I have always been a fan of DeMaupassant. Reading him in French is a way not to forget my French.

I'm going to have fun with my summer reading list. This book is the perfect compilation of French short stories. I would highly recommend it to anyone.

A good idea that doesn't work well in the Kindle format. Instead of adjacent pages in French & English, the Kindle version has several pages (in my case 3) in one language, then the same number of pages in the translation - depending on type size. This makes it difficult to cross refer phrases and words. Unfortunately I left it too late to return the Kindle version, but will change to the paper version to benefit from the dual language facility.

Much prefer these dual-language books...better than the cheap and nasty 'flics' that earlier generations had to endure if they were to pick up a smattering of argot.

5 stars. Excellent!