After study at the Stanislas College in Paris (1827–29) and, in law, at Caen (1829–33), Barbey d'Aurevilly established himself in Paris in 1837 and began to earn a precarious living by writing for periodicals. Despite his evident poverty, he went to great lengths to establish himself as a dandy, and his costumes and magnificent attitudes became legendary.

Barbey d'Aurevilly was appointed, in 1868, to alternate with Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve (Sainte-Beuve, Charles-Augustin) as literary critic for Le Constitutionnel, and on Sainte-Beuve's death in 1869 he became sole critic. His reputation grew, and he came to be known as le Connétable des Lettres (“The Constable of Literature”). Though he was often arbitrary, vehement, and intensely personal in his criticism, especially of Émile Zola and the Naturalist school, many of his verdicts have stood the test of time; he recognized the attainments of Honoré de Balzac, Stendhal, and Charles Baudelaire when they were far from being fully appreciated.

His own novels are set in Normandy, and most of them are tales of terror in which morbid passions are acted out in bizarre crimes. Two of his best works are set against a background of the French Revolution: Le Chevalier des Touches (1864), dealing with the rebellion of the Chouans (bands of Norman outlaws) against the French Republic, and Un Prêtre marié (1865; “A Married Priest”), dealing with the sufferings of a priest under the new regime. Les Diaboliques (1874; Weird Women), a collection of six short stories, is often considered his masterpiece.