Fake Maupassants Stories

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A smart American publisher and bookseller named M Walter Dunne, whose specialty was large and showily produced "sets," felt that the time had come to confront the American public with all of Maupassant; and he issued [starting in 1903], in seventeen volumes, the first large-scale collection of the stories, novels, travel-writings and verse in English....

But the most remarkable feature of the Dunne collection is its contents: for in it are included no less than sixty-five stories which are not the work of Maupassant.

None of these sixty-five stories has ever been included in any French edition of Maupassant's works; I have been able to identify four as tales from the collected works of one of Maupassant's fellow-journalists, Rene Maizeroy; the authorship of the remainder is unknown; but almost without exception internal evidence shows them to be non-Maupassantian. Falsity is particualrly obvious in those dealing with Central and Eastern European life, especially Vienna and Budapest society, territory never explored by Maupassant, and here described in a very non-Maupassant style. Almost all of the sixty-five give the impression of having been trash in their original language or languages, whatever it or they may have been.

The Dunne collection was followed, during subsequent years, by many smaller, less elaborate Maupassant collections for smaller purses, and although Dunne's collection was copyright it seems to have been without real protection, for in the later collections various of the fake stories first published by Dunne continued to appear and reappear.

In 1903, M Walter Dunne begins publishing of the complete works of Guy de Maupassant in seventeen volumes. According to Francis Steegmuller's biography, Maupassant: A Lion in the Path (1950, Collins), Dunne's oeuvre contains sixty-five "fake Maupassants" stories attributed to Maupassant but not written by him. Although they appear in varius English language collections, Steegmuller didn't find any of these stories in the extensive French records of Maupassant's works and for some of the stories an original author has been identified. Later, Onishi Tadao found and additional " fake Maupassants " story, Mad. Twenty-eight stories have been found to have been appropriated from Rene Maizeroy, 20 from Jean Richepin and 18 Leopold von Sacher-Masoch.

This list of fake Maupassants was compiled by Kazuhiko Adachi:

English Title	Author	Original Title
A Deer Park in the Provinces	Sacher-Masoch	Ein Hitschpark in der Provinz
A Fashionable Woman	Sacher-Masoch	Die Frau nach der Mode
A Good Match	Sacher-Masoch	Eine gute Partie
A Misalliance	Sacher-Masoch	Eine Mesalliance
A Night in Whitechapel	Richepin	Ivres-morts
A Rupture	Maizeroy	Rupture
A Useful House	Maizeroy	L'Hotel a tout faire
An Adventure	Richepin	Une Aventure
An Honest Ideal	Sacher-Masoch	Ein eheliches Ideal
An Unfortunate Likeness	Maizeroy	Le Mauvais Mirage
Babette	Richepin	Ch'tiote
Caught	Sacher-Masoch	Gefangen
Countess Satan	Richepin	Comtesse Satan
Delila	Sacher-Masoch	Delila
False Alarm	Maizeroy	Fausse Alerte
Ghosts	Sacher-Masoch	Gepenster der Kirche
Happiness	Maizeroy	Le Bonheur
In Flagrante Delictu/Caught in the Very Act	Maizeroy	Le Flagrant Delit
In His Sweetheart's Livery	Sacher-Masoch	In der Livree der Geliebten
In Various Roles/An Exotic Prince	Sacher-Masoch	Ein exotischer Prinz
Jeroboam	Richepin	Jeroboam
Julot's Opinion	Richepin	L'Opinion de Julot
La Morillonne	Richepin	La Morillonne
Lilie Lala	Maizeroy	Lilie Lala
Lost/Crash	Sacher-Masoch	Krach
Mad	Maizeroy	En folie
Mademoiselle	Richepin	Mademoiselle
Mamma Stirling	Maizeroy	Maman Sterling
Margot's Tapers	Maizeroy	Les Cierges de Margot
Profitable Business	Richepin	Une Bonne Affaire
Stable Perfume/On Perfumes	Sacher-Masoch	Stall-Parfum
Sympathy	Richepin	Correspondances
The Accent	Maizeroy	L'Accent
The Artist	Richepin	Artiste
The Bandmaster's Sister	Maizeroy	La Soeur du chef
The Carnival of Love	Sacher-Masoch	Karnevale der Liebe
The Carter's Wench	Maizeroy	La Fille aux rouliers
The Clown	Richepin	Pouillards
The Confession	Maizeroy	Le Confession
The Debt	Richepin	La Dette
The Hermaphrodite	Maizeroy	L'Hermaphrodite
The Ill-Omened Groom	Sacher-Masoch	Der verhangnisvolle Jockey
The Jennet	Maizeroy	Le Genet
The Lancer's Wife	Richepin	La Uhlane
The Last Step	Maizeroy	Le Dernier Pas
The Man with the Blue Eyes	Richepin	L'Homme aux yeux pales
The Man with the Dogs	Richepin	Cht'Heumme-aux-quiens
The Marquis	Richepin	Le Marquis
The Mountebanks	Maizeroy	Les Monteflores
The New Sensation	Maizeroy	Le Frisson nouveau
The Odalisque of Senichou	Sacher-Masoch	Eine Smichower Odaliske
The Old Maid	Maizeroy	Vielle fille
The Real One and the Other	Maizeroy	La Vraie et LAutre
The Relics	Maizeroy	Les Reliques
The Sequel to a Divorce	Maizeroy	Suite de divorce
The Thief	Maizeroy	Le Voleur
The Upstart	Maizeroy	Parvenu
The Venus of Braniza	Sacher-Masoch	Die Venus von Braniza
The Viaticum	Maizeroy	Le Viatique
The White Lady	Sacher-Masoch	Die weisse Frau
Ugly	Richepin	Laid
Under the Yoke	Maizeroy	Sous le joug
Violated	Richepin	Viole
Virtue in the Ballet	Sacher-Masoch	Die Tugen beim Ballett
Virtue/Kind Girls	Richepin	Bonnes filles
Wife and Mistress	Maizeroy	Naufrage

Works

Composition	Kind	Creator	AsNotedIn
Composition	Kind	Creator	AsNotedIn
An Uncomfortable Bed (short story)	Short Story	Guy de Maupassant
Ghosts (Short Story)	Short Story	Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
The Accent (Maizeroy short story)	Short Story	Rene-Jean Toussaint
The Artist (short story)	Short Story	Jean Richepin
The Lancer's Wife (short story)	Short Story	Jean Richepin
The Man with the Pale Eyes (short story)	Short Story	Jean Richepin
The Venus of Branzia (Short Story)	Short Story	Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

People

Last Name	Name	AsNotedIn
Guy de Maupassant:	Guy de Maupassant	1000 SS
Richepin:	Jean Richepin
von Sacher-Masoch:	Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
Toussaint:	Rene-Jean Toussaint