Stendhal - A Biography by Alter, Robert (in Collaboration with Carol Cosman) - 1980

London: George Allen and Unwin, 1980. An As New copy with an As New dustjacket. xiii + 285 pages. 18 illustrations. Tracing the connections between the almost comic succession of failures in Stendhal's life and the enduring triumphs of his art, Robert Alter illuminates the process through which the writer's public and private experience fed into his great literary works. An engrossing and stylish critical biography which reveals how an unprepossessing and far from successful French minor official, born and raised in the provinces, and whose sense of society was shaped by the upheavals of pre- and post-Napoleonic Europe, should have become one of the most brilliant and imaginative of guides to the promises and pitfalls of sexual and worldly ambitions. **** NOT EX LIB **** L. First Edition. Hard Cover. As New/As New. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.