Professor Bandy docs not attempt to explain why the introduction to ...

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Professor Bandy docs not attempt to explain why the introduction to the Histoires extraordinaires did not 'radically alter the content or impact of the 1852 essay', despite the availability of so much more documentation. But he has provided the necessary material for studies of the 'Notes nouvelles sur Edgar Poe' which will not, one hopes, be too unworthy of his pioneer work on the earlier essays. Professor Bandy is right to be surprised by Baudelaire's dismissal of 'To Helen' (Mrs Stanard) as a pastiche, but not necessarily in regarding it either as a lapse of taste or as an isolated reservation. He himself notes how 'tepid', compared with Daniel's, is Baudelaire's judgment of 'The Bells'. Worse still, 'The Raven', described in 185a as 'une merveille' on the authority of Longfellow and Emerson, not to mention Daniel, becomes merely 'Strange' once Baudelaire has read it for himself. Far from prompting original eulogy, revelation of the bulk of the poetic works leads to a summing up which differs remarkably little from that given on the basis of personal knowledge of four poems only, a point emphasized by the rather perfunctory echo of the 'bijou dc cristaP of 1852 in the 'parfait comme le cristal' of 1857. Perhaps the question of the real strength of Baudelaire's admiration for Poe as a poet should be given more prominence in the controversy between partisans of 'affinity' like Professor Bandy and the partisans of 'influence' whose cause, it would appear, is lost for the period prior to 1852.2 D . J. MOSSOP DURHAM 2 Misprints noted in an otherwise excellent edition were as follows: p. xxxvi, 'converation qui n'itait pas du consecutive'; p. 3, 'argue'; p. 6, 'ausse'; p. 10, 'tremblottant'; p. 15, 'object'; p. 51, 'origiaT, 'This'; p. 52, 'judment'; p. 55, 'chrystal'; p. 58, 'he', 'check'; p. 89, 'inexpressively'—for 'inexpressibly'; p. 94, 'Falalite''; p. 06, 'ontreV; p. 99, 'is'; p. 100, 'mention'; p. 102, 'compartriote'; p. 103, 'assoifeV; p. 106, 'literature', 'Physionomic'; p. 108, 'longeurs'; p. 109, 'trahisaicnt', 'noumsante'.

Contes et nouvelles. I. Preface d'ARMAND LANOUX. Introduction de Louis FORESTIER. Texte e"tabli ct annotd par Louis FORESTIER. (Bibliothequc de la P16iade). Paris: Gallimard. 1974. Ixxxv-f- 1,662 pp. 96 F.

MAUPASSANT:

Though much of Maupassant's work belongs to journalism (cf. p. xxxiii) rather than imaginative literature—Lanoux even seems to congratulate him on the fact when he declares (p. xviii) that 'le meilleur Maupassant, e'est du Flaubert de"tendu'l—his 'meteoric career' (p. x) is marked, from Boule de suif to Le Champ d'oliviers ('cschylien', p. xi), by a series of '£panouis chefs-d'oeuvre', as Mallarm6 calls them, sufficiently numerous 1 That Maupassant's attack on Vtcriturc artiste really aims at Flaubert (ibid.) it takes a member of the Academic Goncourt to maintain.

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and unmistakable to outweigh all other considerations and too often read, reprinted and discussed for the present edition, however welcome, to appear in the light of a consecration. From this point of view it might have been advantageous to give the impression of postulating Maupassant's talent, rather than of having to demonstrate it. To insist so much on his 'modernity' (p. ix: Maupassant vivant, p. xix: 'Maupassant est un 6crivain d'aujourd'hui'; also Introduction, pp. xxvii, xxxiv, lv) has something at once patronizing and blurb-like about it, apart from begging too many questions. General accounts have rarely been more bedevilled than in the case of Maupassant by a host of pseudo-problems connected with biography, classification, literary genre (cf. pp. xxxv-xxxviii, conte and nouvelle), which lead in practice, not towards, but away from the one object worthy of attention, the particular work in itself, and die temptation is strong to argue from the author and his ideas to his art, as some of his worst detractors have done. In this case Lanoux seeks the key to Maupassant in a Bachelardian formula: 'un homme de l'eau typique [...] un etre en vertige', while Professor Forcstier, apart from an occasional excursion into structuralism, mainly takes as his thread of Ariadne the concept of alienation: bastardy—disillusion—nihilism—solitude—schizophrenia— madness. If only for the sake of brevity, it may perhaps suffice at this point to say, and can hardly appear presumptuous or unjust in the circumstances, that such ideas as I have myself put forward elsewhere on the detail of Maupassant's texts play little or no part here, cither in the introduction (pp. xxi-lxii) or in the notes (pp. 1265-648). Whether or not it be judged to this extent conservative, the volume certainly represents a remarkable achievement. Not only has the editor added certain items to the corpus and kept, unlike Schmidt, to the chronological order,3 alone trustworthy, but a careful consideration of such manuscripts as survive (some of which are here utilized for the first time) and of different states of the texts during the author's life4 has enabled him to produce a critical edition of enduring value. The commentary appears lively and independent, illuminating on many points, without being laboured, particularly strong on topical and literary allusions, on Maupassant's relations with publishers and colleagues and on questions of sources. Most of Maupassant's borrowings from his own work are noted (perhaps Voyage de noce, p. 512, should be compared with Une Vie, Une Partie de campagne with he Mur in Des Vets'), and due emphasis is placed on echoes of Flaubert, who could also have been quoted for La Parure {Madame Bovary), Adieu and Un Ldche (L'Education sentimentale), he Donneur d'eau binite {Saint-]ulieri). A few sug2 Including the question (p. xiii) of 3 This volume takes us up to March 4

his 'society novels'. 1884. Forestier shows great familiarity with these matters and promises for the second volume a bibliograpny which should be interesting.

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gestions occur to me in the way of sources and analogues generally,3 and one or two miscellaneous points may be raised: pp. 1294-308 (Boule de suif): a few variants supplied by the Conard edition seem to be omitted; for the film of 1946, contrast L'Arche, 2 e anne"c, n° 12, pp. 129-32; there are of course various other adaptations; for se replier, il fait faim and the Marseillaise, cf. Sarcey, he Siege de Paris; p. 1328, Bourdeau 1881 (early 1880); p. 1352, a suppression in Rev. Bleue overlooked; p. 1463, ichange de mauvaises odeurs (Flaubert?); p. 1574, Ingouville (cf. FS, XXVII (1973), p. 468); p. 1582, allusion to Pierre et Jean (apt?); p. 1583, intercept^ (cf. also Ugislateur and extinction}). Misprints are few, mainly dropped letter (pp. 356, 468, 967, 1246), or wrong letter (pp. 90: read Henry?, 328, 902, 1128); also p. 91: des (read deux) yeux; p. 112, ninth line up (insert la); p. 154: effleuves; p. 246: escarlopettes; p. 1545, line 14 (words omitted). I have not checked all the tales. G. HAINSWORTH LEEDS

Pierre Loti. By MICHAEL G. LERNER. (Twayne's World Authors Series, 285). New York: Twayne. 1974. 127 pp. ^4.35. Dr Lerner's book will be of considerable interest to students of Pierre Loti's work and of the novel in die late nineteenth century. The biography is remarkably complete. Dr Lerner has not only made very good use of the large amount of new information that has become available in published form since Loti's death in 1923, but he has also incorporated much illuminating material found among the author's inexhaustible archives at Rochefort. Partly through his own fault, partly through the malice of others, Loti has sometimes lent himself to facile caricature; this new study will do much to put the record straight. The discussion of Loti's long writing career is equally full. Loti is remembered nowadays chiefly as a novelist, the author of PSchcur d'hlande and Ramuntcho, but this is to forget that he was a prolific essayist, travel writer and, in later years, patriot and no mean polemicist. In addition, his published diaries and correspondence show the inextricable continuity between the man and his work. It is therefore pleasing to have an updated and frequently perceptive study of these lesser-known writings. One thing that emerges very clearly from Dr Lerner's book is Loti's important contribution to the colonial literature of the day (a new lease of life given to the nineteenth-century fascination for die exotic); his naval and literary careers coincided in fact with the acquisition and cstablish3 Un Bandit corse (cf. also Colomba); La Confession of October 1883 (Menmee, L'Occasion); Heraclius Gloss (Schopenhauer's life); he Lit (Voyage autour de ma chambre, ch. v); Mademoiselle Cocotte (Turgenev, Mumu); Morocco (Delpit, Nissa); Menuet (Kock, Le Vietilard de la rue Mouffetard); La Mere Sauvage (Siebecker, La Grange aux Schwob); Rouerie (La Cousine Bette).

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