Prosper Mérimée 
With Stendhal 

With Stendhal is a delightful portrait of the nineteenth century French novelist Henri Beyle, better known to us as Stendhal.


Two linked texts, introduced, annotated and translated into English for the first time by multi-award-winning author Simon Leys, illuminate the life and mind of the great writer.


The first piece is a set of impressions and memories written by Stendhal’s famous friend Prosper Mérimée. Several vignettes reveal Stendhal’s character – charismatic, engaging, frenetic, hyper-romantic – accompanied by amusing anecdotes of him duelling, falling in love, and holding forth in the company of friends. The second is by Stendhal himself, a fantasy composed one idle afternoon, near the end of his life and for his own pleasure: a whimsical list of the supernatural powers he wished he possessed.



With Stendhal is a charming, entertaining insight into the character of one of the world’s greatest novelists, written for the enjoyment of all readers.


‘As brilliant as it is surprising,
With Stendhal is the most pleasurable and thought-provoking nonfiction book I have read this year.’ —
The Sydney Morning Herald


‘This is a gorgeous miniature of a book, full of wisdom, wit and wild surmise’ —
The Age


‘A charming, nostalgic journey into a lost world’ —
Bookseller+Publisher


‘Original, adventurous, often funny’ —
The Australian

Circa l’autore

Simon Leys is the pen-name of Pierre Ryckmans, who was born in Belgium and settled in Australia in 1970. He taught Chinese literature at the Australian National University and was Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Sydney from 1987 to 1993.

His writing has appeared in The New York Review of Books, Le Monde, Le Figaro Littéraire, Quadrant and The Monthly, and his books include The Hall of Uselessness, The Death of Napoleon, Other People’s Thoughts and The Wreck of the Batavia & Prosper.

In 1996 he delivered the ABC’s Boyer Lectures. His many awards include the Prix Renaudot, the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca, the Prix Guizot and the Christina Stead Prize for fiction.