The Top 10 Short Stories - The French: The top ten short stories of all time written by authors from France.

Written by Voltaire, Victor Hugo, Alphonse Daudet and 6 more

Narrated by Ian Holm, Richard Mitchley and Mark Rice-Oxley

The Top 10 – The French – An Introduction

Among the glories of French culture are the abundance of its literary talents. Within its rich historical legacy are authors who take the landscape of life and create very telling stories. This conflict between history and life summons ideas of strength, beauty, brutality, elegance and all manner of feelings and emotions in these miniature gems.

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere.

In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?

The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme. Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature.

Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made. If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Copyright Group
• Release date: Jan 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781803541013

Voltaire

Voltaire was the pen name of François-Marie Arouet (1694–1778)a French philosopher and an author who was as prolific as he was influential. In books, pamphlets and plays, he startled, scandalized and inspired his age with savagely sharp satire that unsparingly attacked the most prominent institutions of his day, including royalty and the Roman Catholic Church. His fiery support of freedom of speech and religion, of the separation of church and state, and his intolerance for abuse of power can be seen as ahead of his time, but earned him repeated imprisonments and exile before they won him fame and adulation.