Stendhal

Stendhal was the pen name of Henri Beyle, who followed Napoleon to Moscow, lived in Italy as long as he could, served as French consul at Civitavecchia, and wrote for what he called the happy few, predicting he would be read in 1880 and in 1935. The Red and the Black follows a carpenter’s son through the hypocrisies of the Restoration; The Charterhouse of Parma, dictated in seven weeks, is the novel of Italian happiness; On Love the anatomy of his own unrequited passions. Balzac praised him, Nietzsche adored him, and his dates came true.