Stendhal (1783-1842)

French novelist. His novels Le Rouge et le Noir/The Red and the Black (1830) and La Chartreuse de Parme/The Charterhouse of Parma (1839) were pioneering works in their treatment of disguise and hypocrisy and outstanding for their psychological analysis; a review of the latter by fellow novelist Balzac (1840) furthered Stendhal's reputation, but he was not fully understood during his lifetime.

His critical works include Histoire de la peinture en Italie/History of Painting in Italy (1817), Rome, Naples et Florence/Rome, Naples and Florence (1817), Racine et Shakespeare/Racine and Shakespeare (1823-25), and Promenades dans Rome/A Roman Journal (1829). His unfinished novel Lucien Leuwen was published in 1894. Although he shared many of the literary ideas of the Romantics, he remained fiercely independent.

Stendhal was born in Grenoble. After some years spent in the commissariat, he served in Napoleon's armies and took part in the ill-fated Russian campaign. Failing in his hopes of becoming a prefect, he lived in Italy from 1814 until suspicion of espionage drove him back to Paris 1821, where he lived by literary hackwork. From 1830 he was a member of the consular service, posted in Trieste and Civitavecchia, and spent his periods of leave in Paris.

Amongst a variety of miscellaneous works are his Mémoires d'un touriste/Memoirs of a Tourist 1838. The Journal de Stendhal/Private Diaries of Stendhal 1888, Vie de Henri Brulard/Life of Henri Brulard 1890, Souvenirs d'égotisme/Memoirs of an Egotist 1892, and his correspondence, all published posthumously, are valuable as autobiography.