The rise of a scoundrel. The anatomy of a world. In Bel-Ami, Guy de Maupassant delivers a razor-sharp portrait of a man who climbs the social ladder not by virtue, talent, or labor-but by charm, seduction, and sheer opportunism. Georges Duroy begins with nothing: a handsome face, a military past, and the hunger to rise. What follows is a calculated ascent through the bedrooms and salons of Paris, each conquest a rung in his climb toward wealth and power.

First published in 1885, Bel-Ami is a novel of astonishing modernity-merciless in its view of ambition, cynical in its rendering of the press, and unflinching in its depiction of how privilege is acquired and maintained. Maupassant, the great stylist of the Third Republic, writes with a cold eye and a glittering blade. His Paris is a world of surface and strategy, where love is leverage and morality optional.