Stendhal. Red and black

Stendhal is the most famous of many pseudonyms of the French writer Marie-Henri Baile. His now world -famous novel “Red and Black” was first published in 1830. He did not immediately attract the attention of the public. In the first quarter of the XIX century. All of Europe was read out by the historical novels of Walter Scott. Detailed descriptions of the appearance of the heroes and the background on which they act, so characteristic of Scott, were not interested in Stendhal. In his novel “Red and Black”, he carefully dissects the soul of his main character - the ambitious of Julien, who makes his career, acquires a situation in society, and then commits a crazy act that brings him to the guillotine.

Stendhal perfectly understood that the time for literature of such a roll had not yet come. He perspicively predicted that he would be able to evaluate him as a novelist only at the end of the 19th century. So it happened. During the life of the writer, only Balzac managed to discern his remarkable talent. Two years before the death of Stendhal, in 1840, he wrote a “Study of Baile”, in which he spoke about his fellow person in Peru as “one of the outstanding masters of literature of ideas”. The true world glory came to the stand later. The writer was understood and appreciated by such brilliant masters of the word as Goethe, Byron, Balzac and Pushkin.

Our compatriot - historian, writer, literary critic, bibliographer Anatoly Kornelievich Vinogradov played a huge role in the study and popularization of the Stendhal's literary heritage. (1888-1946). In 1912, he graduated from the historical and philological faculty of Moscow University. A year later, Vinogradov visited France, visiting places related to the life of Henri Bayil. Years later, Anatoly Kornelievich became the largest connoisseur of the work of this French writer and the tireless propagandist of his works. In 1938, in the ZhZL series, his book Stendhal and his time was published. It was by the editorship and with Vinogradov’s preface in Soviet Russia that Streamal’s novels were printed: “Red and Black”, “Arman” and “Parm abode”. The novel “Red and Black” in this edition is given precisely in its translation.

In the Paris reprint of 1884, the novel “Red and Black” was illustrated by the drawings of the French artist Henri-Joseph Dubush. They decorate this edition. Dubusha received an art education at the Lyon National School of Fine Arts, where Viktor Viber was his mentor, and then for many years he taught the art of engraving in the Parisian Ekol Estine - the Higher School of Graphic Arts.