Red and Black

Author: (French) Stendhal
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-08-12
Features: Stendhal (1783–1842) was a renowned French writer. The Red and the Black is his main work, a representative of the 19th-century Realist literary movement. The protagonist, Julien Sorel, is the son of a small business owner. With his intelligence, he seduces the mayor's wife while working as a private tutor in the mayor's household. When the affair is exposed, he is forced to leave and enters a seminary. Recommended by the seminary's director, he goes to Paris to serve as a private secretary to the ultramontane nobleman, the Marquis de La Mole. He quickly gains the Marquis's favor and is trusted. Meanwhile, Julien also engages in a secret affair with the Marquis's daughter. Later, under the church's plot, the mayor's wife is forced to write a letter exposing him, which leads to the ruin of his meteoric rise. In anger, he shoots and wounds the mayor's wife, is sentenced to death, and is executed on the guillotine.