Pierre and Jean
by Guy de Maupassant 1850–1893
The book, and the century it came out of.
Translated by Clara Bell
Two brothers in a Le Havre shipping family, one of whom inherits a fortune from a friend of their late mother. That is the whole engine: a will, and a younger son who begins, slowly and against his will, to do arithmetic about his own family. Flaubert was his mother’s friend and made Maupassant rewrite for seven years before letting him publish; this short novel is what that training produced. Illustrated with 60 full-page plates — paintings by Corot, Monet and Nuijen among them.
“Tschah![1]” exclaimed old Roland suddenly, after he had remained motionless for a quarter of an hour, his eyes fixed on the water, while now and again he very slightly lifted his line sunk in the sea.
Pierre and Jean, 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 136 pages
- Reading time
- about 3 hours
- Illustrations
- Full-page plates, credited
- Text
- Complete, unabridged
- Translation
- Clara Bell
- Language
- en
- This edition
- 2026
- ISBN
- 9785486156441
60 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.
1888, with an essay attached about how to write a novel
Maupassant published it with a preface that became more famous in France than the book: an argument that a novelist should not explain his characters but show them, and that "the truth" in fiction is an illusion built by selection. It is one of the founding statements of the modern novel.
The story itself is small and domestic — an inheritance arrives, and one brother works out what it means about their mother — and it demonstrates the theory exactly.
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.
Pierre and Jean, 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, 9785486156441, 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 Pierre and Jean?
- 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 136 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.
