The Red and the Black Author:Stendhal Stendhal, says critic Matthew Josephson, wrote with "sensitive understanding and precise psychological analysis . . ." Certainly, he stirred and shocked the world of his day with his great novel, The Red and the Black. For not only was this the first truly psychological novel, it was also the the first realistic novel, ruthless in its dissection... more » of a decadent and outworn social order, relentless in its exposure of the basic conflict between church and state, searching in its probe into the minds and hearts of men and women.« less