Who Am I? (Number 4)

    I was born on August 5, 1850, near Dieppe, in the castle of Miromesnil, France. I was a Norman. My mother divorced when I was eleven, and my younger brother and I grew up in Etretat. My mother was learned in classical literature. She taught me Shakespeare, and she sent me to a monastery school in Yvetot. When I was thirteen, she sent me to study classical literature at the Lycee Pierre-Corneille in Rouen.
    I was fond of outdoor life, open fields, the sky, hills and streams. I especially liked the sea. In October 1868, I rescued the poet Algemon Charles Swinburne who almost drowned off the coast of Etretat at Normandy.
    The Franco-Prussian war began in 1870 after I graduated from college. I enlisted as a volunteer. When the war ended in 1871, I went to Paris and worked several years as a clerk in the Navy Department. Next, I took a job at the Department of Public Instruction. It was during the nine years of my employment in Paris that I met my mentor, Gustave Flaubert. I worked hard and contributed stories to Le Figaro, l'Echo de Paris, Gil Blas, and Le Gaulois. Many of these stories were about the war.
    In 1880, I published a short story called Boule de Suif or Tallow Ball. It was a success, and it established me as a rising literary star. In 1881, I published a collection of short stories called Le Maison Tellier. I wrote and published my first novel in 1883, Une Vie, A Woman's Life. In following years, I published two more novels, Bel Ami and Pierre et Jean. I was a financial success as well.
    In my spare time I would canoe on the Seine between Chatou and Port-Marly. I traded jokes with the fishermen, and chatted with sailors. I chased dragon flies and they chased me. I had enough money from my work as a writer to buy a private yacht, which I called Bel-Ami, and I sailed off the coast of Cannes and other places. In my lifetime, I travelled to England, Italy, Algeria, Sicily and visited most of the regions of France.
    I contracted syphilis when I was a young man during the war, and it had a profound effect on my physical and mental health as I grew older. On January 2, 1892, I cut my throat and tried to commit suicide. I was committed to a private asylum at Passy, in Paris, and I died on July 6, 1893. I was 43 years old.
    "I entered literary life as a meteor, and I shall leave it like a thunderbolt." These words I spoke to my friend, Jose Maria de Heredia, before my death.
    My name is Guy de Maupassant.

Editor's Note: For a short detailed biography, go to wikipedia at:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_de_Maupassant
For a short five minute read, try Two Friends at Google books:
http://books.google.com/books?id=l9ocwc68KkkC&pg=PA33&dq=two+friends+by+guy+de+maupassant&hl=en&ei=56XgTrPhFMTn0QHe2M3RBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&sqi=2&ved=0CE0Q6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=two%20friends%20by%20guy%20de%20maupassant&f=false
For a balloon ride at night from Paris to the Belgium frontier, read The Trip of Le Horla at Google books: http://books.google.com/books?id=7PzdbcZ3CR0C&pg=PA349&dq=le+horla+by+guy+demaupassant&hl=en&sa=X&ei=yRZ3T_aDGIXq0gGRsOnEDQ&ved=0CFgQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false