Stendhal

Stendhal was the pen name of Marie-Henri Beyle, a French writer born in Grenoble on 23 January 1783 and died on 23 March 1842. He grew up in the years of the Revolution and later served in Napoleon's administration and army, which gave him a close view of power, ambition and its collapse. After the emperor's fall he spent long periods in Italy, a country he loved, and wrote travel books, essays on love and music, and biographical sketches. His fame rests mainly on two novels, The Red and the Black and The Charterhouse of Parma, which follow ambitious, passionate young men through a world of intrigue and hypocrisy. He was admired for his clear, quick prose and his close attention to what characters feel. Little read by the public in his lifetime, he was recognised after his death as one of the founders of the modern psychological novel, and later writers such as Tolstoy and Proust acknowledged his influence.