The Red and the Black (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) EPUB

After Napoleons defeat, the French aristocracy tried to reassert its power in a government known as the Restoration. Venal and corrupt, the Restoration fell in 1830. Later that year, Stendhal published his scathing satire of Restoration society, The Red and the Black. Its title refers to the military and the clergy, the two career paths open to young men of intelligence and ambition but no social standing.

Stendhals hero, Julien Sorel, is such a young man. A seminary student, he is nevertheless an admirer of Napoleon, and dreams of military glory. When he is hired to tutor the mayors children, he quickly seduces the mayors wife, then moves on to Paris where he conquers a noblemans daughter. Sorel comes to believe that the secret of success is to outperform the hypocrites and vicious opportunists who surround himand hes right. But when the rich and powerful he so admires align against him, his downfall becomes unavoidable.

A master of characterization, Stendhal paints a fascinating, multi-layered portrait of Julien Sorel, who endures as one of literatures most complex and surprisingly sympathetica would-be manipulator out of his depth in a sea of sharks.

Bruce Robbins is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. He is the author of Feeling Global: Internationalism in Distress, The Servants Hand: English Fiction from Below, and Secular Vocations: Intellectuals, Professionalism, Culture.