Contes de la Becasse

"Contes de la Becasse" by Guy de Maupassant is a short story collection published in 1883. The opening story establishes a frame narrative: during woodcock hunting season, the elderly Baron des Ravots hosts dinner parties where guests compete to eat the prized woodcock heads. The winner must then tell a story to compensate the others. The remaining tales are supposedly these dinner stories, creating a structure reminiscent of Boccaccio's Decameron. The collection contains seventeen stories in total. (This is an automatically generated summary.)