STENDHAL(Marie-Henri Beyle) was born in Grenoble in 1783. He served in Napoleon's cavalry and thereafter lived in Italy and Paris, where he wrote many books, including
 On Love,  the autobiographical 
Life of Henri Brulard, 
The Charterhouse of Parma (which he wrote in fifty-two days), and 
The Red and the Black. He died in 1842. 
BURTON RAFFEL is a distinguished professor of humanities at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. His many translations include Rabelais's 
Gargantua and Pantagruel,  winner of the 1991 French-American Foundation Translation Prize, Chrétien de Troyes's 
Arthurian Romances, Cervantes's 
Don Quijote, and Balzac's Père Goriot. His translation of 
Beowulf has sold more than a million copies. 
DIANE JOHNSON Is the author of ten novels--most recently
 Le Mariage and Le Divorce--two books of essays, two biographies, and the screenplay for Stanley Kubrick's classic film 
The Shining. She has been a finalist four times for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.