Maupassant's Afloat: Why did this classic account of yacht cruising sink without trace?

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Notes

1 Maupassant, Sur l’eau (trs Ensor), Maupassant, Afloat.

2 Pall Mall Gazette, 7 Jul. 1893.

3 Bel-Ami was built at Lymington by Miller in 1879. Réda, Album Maupassant, 295.

4 Maupassant, Afloat (trs Ensor), 5.

5 Johnson (ed.), Afloat, 12.

6 Ibid., 9.

7 Maupassant, Afloat (trs Ensor), 27–8. His sailing master, Bernard, was right – they were forced by the gale to put into Antibes

8 Newbolt's 1892 poem ‘Vitaï Lampada’ famously links public school sport with preparation for battle.

9 Maupassant, Afloat (trs Ensor), 119–20.

10 Drummond, The Riddle, 123.

11 Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, 15 Feb.1889.

12 Blackburn Standard and Weekly Express, 23 Feb. 1889.

13 Pall Mall Gazette, 25 Feb. and 18 Mar. 1889.

14 Morning Post, 6 Feb. 1889.

15 The Star, 16 Feb. 1889. To be fair, other reviews were more complimentary about the translation.

16 Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, 15 Feb.1889.

17 Birmingham Daily Post, 16 Aug. 1889.

18 Childers, Riddle of the Sands, 36–7.

19 Hearth and Home, 9 Jun. 1892.

20 ‘Advertisements in popular journals and provincial almanacs, for example, suggest that, at least by 1890s, postal retailing of prophylactics was widespread’, Harris, Private Lives, Public Spirit, 48.

21 Drummond, The Riddle, 141–5.

22 Maupassant, Afloat (trs Ensor), 153–4.

23 In 1899, in Regina v. Clarence, the jury asserted ‘a husband’s right to rape his wife (even when, as in this case, the husband was suffering from an advanced stage of syphilis). Harris. Privates Lives, Public Spirit. 26. Woman being sacrificed to oafish hubands is a strong theme in French Naturalism: witness Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Zola’s Therese Raquin, Jean in Maupassant’s A Woman’s Life, Madeleine in Bel-ami, and Madame Roland in Pierre et Jean.

24 Maupassant, Afloat (trs Ensor), 198.

25 Ibid., 197.

26 The Comtesse Gilberte in A Woman’s Life, Madames Marelle and Walters in Bel-ami, and Madame Roland in Pierre et Jean. They were following earlier French naturalist heroines, such as Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (1857) and Zola’s Therese Raquin (1867).

27 Hearth and Home, 24 Dec. 1891.

28 Daily News, 19 May 1891.

29 Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, 15 Feb. 1889.

30 Birmingham Daily Post, 6 Jan. 1892.

31 Belfast News-Letter, 8 Jan. 1892.

32 It fared rather better in the United States, with new editions in 1909, 1910 and 1917.

33 He had sailed extensively in the Baltic and wrote an account of a season's sailing in Racundra's First Cruise (1923).

34 Maupassant, Afloat (trs Johnston); Mau- passant Afloat (trs Parmée).