Translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff

From the time Honore de Balzac pronounced Stendhal's pre-eminence among the novelists of France until today, the author of The Red and the Black has retained and spread his influence among writers of every nationality. His story of Julien Sorel is incomparably the most astute and penetrating study of middle-class mores in all fiction. It is, in addition, a relentless dissection of the hypocrisy and opportunism of as unconscionable an upstart as ever violated the Seventh and other Commandments in order to get on in the world.