Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (UK: /ˈmoʊpæsɒ̃/,[1][2] US: /ˈmoʊpəsɒnt, ˌmoʊpəˈsɒ̃/;[2][3][4][5] French: [ɡi d(ə) mopasɑ̃]; 5 August 1850 – 6 July 1893) was a 19th-century French author, celebrated as a master of the short story, as well as a representative of the naturalist school, depicting human lives, destinies and social forces in disillusioned and often pessimistic terms.

Maupassant was a protégé of Gustave Flaubert and his stories are characterized by economy of style and efficient, seemingly effortless dénouements.

[7] Gustave's great-great-grandfather, Jean-Baptiste de Maupassant (1699–1774), conseiller-secrétaire to King Louis XV, had been ennobled by Emperor Francis I in 1752, and although his family were considered petite noblesse they had not yet received official recognition by the Kingdom of France.

[8] When Maupassant was 11 and his brother Hervé was five, his mother, an independent-minded woman, risked social disgrace to obtain a legal separation from her husband, who was violent towards her.

[10] From his early education, he retained a marked hostility to religion, and to judge from verses composed around this time, he deplored the ecclesiastical atmosphere, its ritual and discipline.

[13] Next year, in autumn, he was sent to the Lycée Pierre-Corneille in Rouen[14] where he proved a good scholar, indulging in poetry and taking a prominent part in theatricals.

[15] The Franco-Prussian War broke out soon after his graduation from college in 1870 and Maupassant volunteered to serve in the French Army without attending military academy as aspirant.

At Flaubert's home he met Émile Zola (1840–1902) and the Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev (1818–1883), as well as many of the proponents of the realist and naturalist schools.

This life did not prevent him from making friends among the literary celebrities of his day: Alexandre Dumas, fils had a paternal affection for him; at Aix-les-Bains he met Hippolyte Taine (1828–1893) and became devoted to the philosopher-historian.

His friendship with the Goncourts was of short duration; his frank and practical nature reacted against the ambiance of gossip, scandal, duplicity, and invidious criticism that the two brothers had created around them in the guise of an 18th-century style salon.

[20] He and forty-six other Parisian literary and artistic notables attached their names to an elaborately irate letter of protest against the tower's construction, written to the Minister of Public Works, and published on 14 February 1887.

[21] Declining appointment to the Légion d'honneur and election to the Académie française,[22] Maupassant also wrote under several pseudonyms, including "Joseph Prunier", "Guy de Valmont", and "Maufrigneuse" (which he used from 1881 to 1885).

In his later years he developed a constant desire for solitude, an obsession for self-preservation, and a fear of death and paranoia of persecution caused by the syphilis he had contracted in his youth.

[23] On 2 January 1892, Maupassant tried to take his own life by cutting his throat; he was committed to the private asylum of Esprit Blanche at Passy, in Paris, where he died on 6 July 1893 from syphilis.

Literary theorist Kornelije Kvas wrote that along "with Chekhov, Maupassant is the greatest master of the short story in world literature.

[26] Friedrich Nietzsche's autobiography mentions him in the following text: "I cannot at all conceive in which century of history one could haul together such inquisitive and at the same time delicate psychologists as one can in contemporary Paris: I can name as a sample – for their number is by no means small, ... or to pick out one of the stronger race, a genuine Latin to whom I am particularly attached, Guy de Maupassant."

Several of Maupassant's short stories, including "La Peur" and "The Necklace", were adapted as episodes of the 1986 Indian anthology television series Katha Sagar.