This handsome volume, which is expertly edited and contains a detailed and helpful Chronology, presents 15 early stories only intermittently representative of the French master's satirical precision and psychological depth. Of the several previously untranslated, which are almost certainly at least partially autobiographical, and some of which were subsumed into later work, only the arrestingly melodramatic "A True-Life Drama" and the harrowing conte cruel "The Donkey" are notable. Best is the long title story, a superficial but often charming episodic arrangement of Parisian scenes and characters (including a wicked sketch of Æ'mile Zola). Not the best of Maupassant, but very much worth having.