Prosper Mérimée was a nineteenth-century French author who helped shape the short story and novella. He wrote influential works of supernatural fiction and realism, including Colomba and La Venus D'Ille. His stories are frequently featured in classic horror collections for their tense and direct style.
Stendhal was the pseudonym of the 19th-century French writer Marie-Henri Beyle. Known for his acute analysis of his characters' psychology, he is considered one of the earliest and foremost practitioners of realism in his two novels Le Rouge et le Noir (The Red and the Black, 1830) and La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma, 1839).