Mademoiselle Perle and Other Stories (riverrun editions) - a new selection of the sharp, sensitive and much-revered stories

Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893) was a French writer and master of the short story form. He was born in Normandy, but later moved to Rouen where he was mentored by the novelist Flaubert. After serving in the Franco-Prussian war in 1870, he returned to writing as a sanctuary, becoming a fledgling member of the Naturalist group pioneered by Émile Zola. Elsie Martindale Hueffer (1876-1949) was the wife of Ford Madox Ford.
Ford and Elsie went from being school friends to soulmates, to literary collaborators, then lovers, and eloped in 1894. By late 1902 Elsie, encouraged by her husband and by Conrad, at the time their friend and neighbour in Kent, started translating Maupassant. Ada Galsworthy (1893-1933) the adopted daughter of a Norwich doctor, was thirty-five at the time she undertook these translations, having spent her adolescence and early adult years travelling in Europe with her mother.
Elegant and well-dressed, she was a talented pianist and later a composer of songs. Robert Hampson is Professor Emeritus at Royal Holloway, University of London, and Research Fellow at the University of London Institute for English Studies and is Chair of the Joseph Conrad Society (UK). Helen Chambers is an Honorary Associate in English at The Open University. Her recent monograph, Conrad's Reading: Space, Time, Networks, appeared in 2018.
She has lived in France since 2002.