His development and mastery of the "nouvelle", a long short story or short novel, was another notable contribution to French literature. When he began his writing career in the 1830s, the most prominent genres were the drama (Victor Hugo and Musset), poetry (Hugo, Lamartine and Vigny), and the autobiography (Chateaubriand). Mérimée perfected the short story, with an economy of words and action. The contemporary literary critic Sainte-Beuve wrote: "...He goes right to the fact, and goes immediately into action... his story is clear, lean, alert, vivid. In the dialogues of his characters there is not a useless word, and in his actions he lays out in this advance exactly how and why it will have to happen". In this genre, he was the contemporary of Edgar Allan Poe and the predecessor of Guy de Maupassant.