French · 1783–1842
Stendhal's "The Red and the Black" (1830) and "The Charterhouse of Parma" (1839) established the psychological novel in France. Born Marie-Henri Beyle, he took his pen name from a German town. His prose is dry and clear; his attention to ambition, hypocrisy, and passion remains modern. Stendhal was largely unrecognized in his lifetime. Posterity proved him right.