The Red and the Black by Stendhal, Burton Raffel, Diane Johnson

The author, Marie-Henri Beyle, is better known by his pen name “Stendhal.” He was born in 1783 in the city of Grenoble in southeastern France. His mother passed away before he turned eight. After his mother’s death, his upbringing was severe. It caused him to develop a gloomy personality. He grew to resent his lawyer father and his strict tutor, a Jesuit-priest. Fortunately, his salvation was his grandfather, who was kind and loving towards him. He read voraciously in his grandfather’s library. Stendhal went to Paris In 1799, after Napoléon Bonaparte launched the Coup of 18 Brumaire. In Paris, under his cousin’s recommendation, he first joined the army and subsequently worked at the administrative court. He also took part in the Napoleonic wars as the Emperor’s messenger. After Napoléon’s abdication in 1814, Stendhal lost his job and fell into significant debt. He quit France for Italy and began eking out his living as a writer. In this period, he produced a wide range of works, including essays, short stories, novels, novella, non-fiction, and travel books. He conceived The Red and the Black, his magnum opus, in 1829.

When the novel was eventually published the following year, it was received with indifference by the literary world. Of the first edition, only 750 copies were printed, and sales were sluggish. Nonetheless, Stendhal had profound confidence in his work. He once predicted that it would be 1880 before people would start to read and accept the novel and 1935 before the public would acknowledge its significance.

True to his words, The Red and the Black received acclaim only half a century after its original imprint. Émile Zola, the French realist writer, referred to Stendhal as “one of our masters.” Leo Tolstoy, the eminent Russian author, praised Stendhal’s techniques of psychological description. André Gide, the Nobel laureate, described The Red and the Black as ahead of its time. He commented that it was a novel for twentieth-century readers. Although he was largely overlooked during his lifetime, thanks to The Red and the Black, Stendhal has subsequently become a renowned literary figure. Over the two centuries since its publication, the novel has been globally ranked among many readers’ favorite works, especially so among younger readers.