Guy de Maupassant (1850—1893), after serving in the Franco-Prussian War, became close friends with Flaubert and his circle. He wrote hundreds of short stories as well as novels and verse. In his later years, he suffered from mental illness, and he died in an asylum. Douglas Parmée (1914-2008), a lifetime fellow of Queens College, Cambridge, has translated works by Flaubert, Zola, Baudelaire, and Chamfort, among others, including the NYRB Classics titles, The Child by Jules Vallès and Afloat by Guy de Maupassant. He is a past winner of the Society of Authors Scott-Moncrieff Prize for French translation.