The Red and the Black

The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of 1830 is Stendhal’s masterpiece and one of the foundational novels of literary realism. It tells the story of Julien Sorel, a brilliant and ambitious young man from a provincial carpenter’s family, who attempts to rise above his humble origins in the rigidly class-conscious society of Restoration France. Torn between the “red” of a military career under Napoleon (now impossible) and the “black” of the priesthood, Julien navigates the worlds of the provincial bourgeoisie and Parisian aristocracy through intelligence, hypocrisy, and passionate love affairs—first with Madame de Rênal, the gentle wife of his employer, and later with Mathilde de La Mole, the proud daughter of a marquis.

Based in part on a real criminal case, the novel is a penetrating psychological portrait of ambition, self-deception, and the collision between individual desire and social convention. Stendhal’s ironic narration and revolutionary attention to his hero’s inner life made the novel a landmark in the development of the modern psychological novel.

This edition is the English translation by Horace B. Samuel, first published in 1916.