Bel Ami
Or, The History of a Scoundrel: A Novel
by Guy de Maupassant 1850–1893
The book, and the century it came out of.
A penniless cavalry veteran with a good moustache is given a job on a Paris newspaper, and discovers that every rung of the ladder above him is a woman. Maupassant was trained by Flaubert, who made him rewrite for seven years before letting him publish, and he wrote this in the middle of the press-and-politics world he was watching from inside. Nothing in it punishes the scoundrel. Illustrated with 59 full-page plates — paintings by Degas, Carpeaux and de Toulouse-Lautrec among them.
After changing his five-franc piece[1] Georges Duroy left the restaurant.
Bel Ami, by Guy de Maupassant, complete and unabridged. Spelling and punctuation follow present-day American usage; the sentences, the paragraphs and the voice are the author’s, word for word.
It was written in another era and may carry attitudes a reader today will find dated. They are kept for the sake of the work and do not reflect the views of this house.
- Series
- Salon & Steppe
- Format
- Ebook
- Extent
- about 152 pages
- Reading time
- about 3 hours
- Illustrations
- Full-page plates, credited
- Text
- Complete, unabridged
- Language
- en
- This edition
- 2026
- ISBN
- 9785501319714
59 paintings are bound into this edition
Six of them are shown here, taken from the volume itself. Each is reproduced full page and named with its painter and year.
Paris, 1885 — the press as a business
Maupassant had worked as a journalist for a decade and knew exactly how a Paris newspaper was financed: by the people who needed a particular story told a particular way, usually about a colonial expedition somebody was speculating on. The novel’s Morocco affair is a lightly fictionalised version of a real Tunisian one.
He was also the most commercially successful writer in France, dying of syphilis at forty-two, and he wrote this portrait of a beautiful, stupid, entirely successful man with no illusions about the world that rewarded him.
A page from this edition
Not a mock-up: this page is taken from the finished volume. The ornament above the chapter belongs to its shelf and to no other, the opening letter is set as a drop capital, and the plate below carries the name of the painter and the year.
Both photographed from the finished volume.
Bel Ami, issued in this edition by Aeneas Press in 2026 on the Salon & Steppe shelf. Newly set, with the ornament of its series above each chapter and a drop capital on the opening page. Illustrated with full-page plates, each named with its painter.
Published as an ebook and not issued in print by this house; it carries one ISBN, 9785501319714, and is supplied worldwide. This edition — its setting, its ornament, its cover art, and the selection and attribution of its plates — © 2026 Aeneas Press.
Questions readers ask
- Is this the whole of Bel Ami?
- Yes — complete and unabridged. Nothing is cut, condensed or paraphrased. This is the book, not a summary of it.
- What exactly did you change?
- The spelling and the punctuation follow present-day American usage. Guy de Maupassant's sentences are untouched — same words, same order, same rhythm.
- Are the pictures really in the book?
- Yes. The edition carries full-page plates bound into the text, each one named with its painter and the year it was made. Six of them are shown on this page.
- How long is it?
- About 152 pages, which is roughly about 3 hours of reading.
- What do I actually get?
- An illustrated ebook with its own ISBN, sold worldwide. One file, yours to keep, readable on any device.
