Honore de Balzac
- „Lost Illusions” is a serial novel, written by the French writer, Honoré de Balzac, between 1837 and 1843. It consists of: „Two Poets”, „A Distinguished Provincial at Paris”, „Eve and David”, starting in provincial France, thereafter moving to Paris, and finally returning to the provinces. The story of Lucien Chardon, a young poet from Angouleme who tries desperately to make a name for himself in Paris,...
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- Wonderful tale set in the provincial town of Besançon, and focusing on the de Watteville family – the fiercely religious and independently wealthy wife, the ineffectual husband, who absents himself, spending his days working his lathe and 19-year-old daughter, Rosalie. She falls in love with the mysterious stranger who took up residence a few yards away from her family’s home. Through her maid, herself...
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- „The Country Doctor” („Le Médecin de Campagne”), by Honoré de Balzac, belongs to the series known as „Scenes from Country Life”; a part of his great cycle of fiction, „The Comedy of Human Life”. It is one of Balzac’s noblest pieces of fiction, presenting beautiful traits of human nature with sympathy and power. The scene is laid in a village near Grenoble in France, and the story begins with the year...
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- Just a plain old story told by a superb story teller. „A Marriage Contract” (French: „Le Contrat de marriage”) is an 1835 novel by French author Honoré de Balzac and included in the „Scenes de la vie privée” section of his novel sequence „La Comédie humaine”. Set in Bordeaux, the marriage between an elegant but weak young Parisian gentleman, Paul de Manerville, and the beautiful but spoiled daughter...
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- „Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan” is a comic tale about a society woman, a Princess and a Duchess, who attempts to recycle her slightly seedy past by pursuing a minor literary figure of great probity and innocence. The Princess de Cadignan, aka the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, has consorted with such notable Balzac rakes as Henri de Marsay, Maxime de Trailles, and Eugene de Rastignac, but is disconcerted...
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- Originally published in 1830, here we have perhaps Balzac’s best short work, named simply „Gobseck”. Gobseck is a marvelous sketch of a money-lender and miser in Paris during the early part of the nineteenth century who is a font of psychological insight when it comes to humankind’s greed, vanity and other dark motives. His philosophy of never helping anyone because „adversity is the greatest of all...
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- Autobiographical and exceptionally romantic, „The Lily of the Valley” is an 1835 novel about love and society by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) and is one of his personal favorites among his innumerable novels. The creator of the „Human Comedy” brings his creative insight to a portrait of a lady and a love affair set in the Loire valley. It concerns the affection – emotionally...
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- „Ferragus” is an 1833 novel by French author Honoré de Balzac and included in the „Scenes de la vie parisienne” section of his novel sequence „La Comédie humaine”. It is part of his trilogy „Histoire des treize”: „Ferragus” is the first part, the second is „La Duchesse de Langeais” and the third is „The Girl with the Golden Eyes”. A captivating story about human emotions and relations, set in the year...
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- Depicting the fatal clash between material desires and the liberating power of human passions, Honoré de Balzac’s „Eugénie Grandet” (1833) is one of the earliest and most famous novels in his „Comedie humaine” cycle, which portrays a society consumed by the struggle to amass wealth and achieve power. The Grandet household, oppressed by the exacting miserliness of Grandet himself, is jerked violently...
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- This novel opens in the old town of Guerande which still enclosed by mighty walls and possesses moats still full of water. The houses have not changed and the streets are as they were one hundred years in the past. It is the family seat of the de Guenics. The old society of the town gather here to play cards and gossip, often about the younger generations. The son of the house, Calyste, is going to...
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- In 1807 Colonel Chabert, Napoleon’s beloved commander, is severely wounded in the Battle of Eylau. Taken for dead and buried in a mass grave, he manages to escape and wanders in poverty through Europe for 10 years, torn between life and death, oblivion and consciousness. Finally recovering his memories, he sets out for Paris to search for his wife who had been a prostitute before he married her and...
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- „The Girl with the Golden Eyes” is the third part of a trilogy. Part one is entitled „Ferragus” and part two is „The Duchesse de Langeais”. The three stories are frequently combined under the title „The Thirteen”. It tells the story of a rich and ruthless young man in nineteenth century Paris caught up in an amorous entanglement with a mysterious beauty. Henri de Marsay, a young dandy who is obsessed...
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- An extremely collectible, sweet little book named for and written in honor of Balzac’s mother. Comtesse Honorine de Bauvan was married to the Comte at nineteen. She leaves him and is later abandoned by her lover when she becomes pregnant. She lives simply and earns money by making artificial flowers. What she doesn’t know is that her husband is paying exorbitant prices for her work, thus supporting...
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- This is the coming of age story of a young sculptor named Sarrasine and the choices he will face on his journey towards his destiny. We follow Sarrasine as he travels from France to Italy to search for his passion and find the love of his life. The story of Sarrasine is intertwined with that of the beautiful La Zambinella, and Italian singer with whom the young sculptor will fall madly, deeply in love...
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- „Domestic Peace”, a short story by Honoré de Balzac, was originally published in 1831 under the French title of „La Paix du Ménage” and can be found in Scenes from private life (Scenes de la vie privee) in „La Comedie Humaine”. It takes place in November of 1809 at the height of Napoleon’s empire, a time of great splendor and decadence. Everyone who’s anyone in the Parisian aristocracy is gathered...
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- Immerse yourself in the inner workings of a quaint French village in this charming novel from Honoré de Balzac, an early master of literary realism. The work was dedicated to Balzac’s brother in law, an engineer in the corps royal des ponts et chaussées, Eugene Midy de la Greneraye Surville. Brimming with finely observed details and Balzac’s trademark insight into human motivations and morality, „An...
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- Two works of 1829 brought Balzac to the brink of success. „Les Chouans”, the first novel he felt enough confidence about to have published under his own name, is a historical novel about the Breton peasants called „Chouans” who took part in a royalist insurrection against Revolutionary France in 1799 that occurred in the region between Brittany and Nantes and Balzac places his story in this accurate...
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- In a dark, narrow street in Paris lives an old widow and her pretty young daughter, sit by the window most days. They share a poor but contented existence, supporting themselves through embroidery work. They see a gentleman in a brown coat pass by in the mornings and return in the evenings. The mother always remarks that he appears either over-worked or in delicate health. The daughter ignores most...
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- Monsieur Guillaume is a draper in Paris. He owns his shop, „La Maison du Chat-qui-pelote” and took the business over from his master, also marrying the daughter. Guillaume is the very portrait of the successful bourgeois. He has three clerks apprenticed to him, the first of whom, Joseph, is an orphan he intends to marry to his elder daughter Virginie. However, Joseph is in love with the younger daughter...
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- Prior to the twentieth century, philosophy was the driving force behind all literature. Authors used the novel as a means to communicate their ideas on man’s purpose and his place in the universe. With Louis Lambert, however, Balzac takes the idea of the philosophical novel a little too far in giving us this odd, chimerical mashup of philosophical treatise and coming-of-age novel. The novel seems to...
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