Stendhal

Born Marie-Henri Beyle in Grenoble in 1783, he wrote under the name Stendhal and became one of the great French novelists of the 19th century. He lived through the upheavals of the Napoleonic era, spent significant time in Italy, and worked in government and consular posts as well as in journalism and criticism.

His novels are admired for their intelligence, emotional precision, and close attention to ambition, love, vanity, and self-deception. The Red and the Black and The Charterhouse of Parma are his most famous works, and readers often turn to him for characters who feel vividly alive rather than simply heroic.

Although he was not fully appreciated in his own lifetime, his reputation grew steadily after his death in 1842. Today he is often seen as a bridge between Romantic passion and the more exact, psychologically observant fiction that followed.