With Stendhal

Description

With Stendhal is a delightful portrait of the nineteenth-century French novelist Henri Beyle, better known to us as Stendhal. Two linked texts, introduced, annotated and translated into English for the first time by Simon Leys, illuminate the life and mind of the great writer. The first piece is a set of impressions and memories written by Stendhal's famous friend Prosper Merimee. Several vignettes reveal Stendhal's character - charismatic, engaging, frenetic, hyper-romantic - accompanied by amusing anecdotes of him duelling, falling in love, and holding forth in the company of friends. The second is by Stendhal himself, a fantasy composed one idle afternoon, near the end of his life and for his own pleasure: a whimsical list of the supernatural powers he wished he possessed. With Stendhal is a charming, entertaining insight into the character of one of the world's greatest novelists, written for the enjoyment of all readers.

Simon Leys is a writer, sinologist, essayist, literary critic and author of Other People's Thoughts, The Death of Napoleon, The Wreck of the Batavia and Prosper. Leys studied law at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Louvain), Chinese language, literature and art in Taiwan. He went to Hong Kong, before settling down in Australia in 1970. He taught Chinese literature at the Australian National University, where he supervised the honours thesis of current Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and later was Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Sydney, from 1987 to 1993. In 2004 he was awarded the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca.