The author of The Red and the Black could ask for no more fitting homage than the lucid, breezy prose and shrewd psychological analyses of his latest biographer. British author Jonathan Keates nearly equals Stendhal (1783-1842) in his ability to dissect his subject's fantasies, evasions and outright lies while retaining tenderness for the human yearnings that prompted them. Intended for the general reader, the book eschews lengthy literary exegeses in favor of a vigorous narrative that does full justice to Stendhal's adventurous trajectory from the stultifying French provinces to Napoleon's army, Italy's romantic charms, and beyond.