Guy de Maupassant published over three hundred short stories in a single decade, became the highest-paid writer in France, and then watched his own mind disintegrate as syphilis destroyed his brain. He attempted suicide by slitting his throat, was committed to an asylum, and died at forty-two — convinced that his brain was leaking out through his nose. The sharpest observer of human folly in French literature ended his days unable to recognize his own reflection.

This episode traces Maupassant from his apprenticeship under Flaubert through the decade of furious production, the physical and mental collapse, and the asylum death that ended the career of France’s greatest short story writer.

• Maupassant’s apprenticeship under Flaubert and the decade of training before his first published story
• “Boule de Suif” and the explosive debut that made him France’s most popular writer overnight
• Three hundred stories in ten years — the manic productivity that masked advancing disease
• The syphilitic madness, the suicide attempt, the asylum, and his death at forty-two