Famous Genealogies

Biography

Guy de Maupassant was the first son of Laure Le Poittevin and Gustave de Maupassant, both from prosperous bourgeois families. When Maupassant was eleven and his brother Hervé was five, his mother, an independent-minded woman, risked social disgrace to obtain a legal separation from her husband.

After separating from her husband, Le Poittevin kept her two sons, the elder Guy and younger Hervé. With the father’s absence, Maupassant’s mother became the most influential figure in the young boy’s life. She was a woman of no common literary accomplishments, but was very fond of classic literature, especially Shakespeare. Until the age of thirteen, Guy happily lived with his mother, to whom he was deeply devoted, at Étretat, in the Villa des Verguies, where, between the sea and the luxuriant countryside, he grew very fond of fishing and outdoor activities. At age thirteen, he was sent to a small seminary near Rouen for classical studies.

In October 1868, at the age of 18, he saved the famous poet Algernon Charles Swinburne from drowning off the coast of Étretat at Normandy. As he entered junior high school, he met the great author Gustave Flaubert.

He first entered a seminary at Yvetot, but deliberately got himself expelled. From his early education he retained a marked hostility to religion. Then he was sent to the Rouen Lycée, where he proved a good scholar indulging in poetry and taking a prominent part in theatricals.

Source :  http://www.wikipedia.org/