For the background:
Cobban, A., A History of Modern France, vol. 2 (1961)
Magraw, R., France 1815- 1914: the Bourgeois Century (1983)
On "The Red and the Black":
Auerbach, E., Mimesis (translated into English 1953)
Bloom, H. (ed.), Stendhal's The Red and the Black (Modern Critical Interpretations) (1988)
Haig, S., Stendhal: The Red and the Black (Landmarks of World Literature)(1989)
Hemmings, F. W. J., Stendhal: a study of his novels (1964)
Pearson, R., Stendhal's Violin (1988)
Prendergast, C., The Order of Mimesis (1986)