Monsieur Guillaume began as a draper's clerk and after marrying the daughter of his employer eventually succeeded to the business. He and his wife have two daughters. The scene opens with a sketch of his business; he now has an assistant who is smitten with one of his daughters. As he surveys the opening of the shop for a new day of business he notes a stranger whose eyes are intent upon his shop, or possibly on the upper floor where the family dwells. (from a review by Dagny)

Emilie de Fontaine is a spoiled and pround brat. She rejects all suitors her father proposes. She will only marry a peer of France - or not at all! At a ball, she meets the handsome Maximilian. They fall in love. But one day, Emily discovers that Maximilian has a secret...

The young painter Hippolyte Schinner falls from a step-ladder while working in his atelier and is knocked unconscious. The noise of his fall alerts two of his neighbours, Adélaïde Leseigneur and her mother Madame de Rouville, who occupy the apartment immediately below. - Wikipedia

We are in Le Havre. A merchant sets off to rebuild his fortune in the South Seas, leaving behind the most exquisite girl, Modeste Mignon. Modeste maintains a correspondence with a famous writer, Canalis, elegiac poet and bigoted careerist, through whom Balzac was not shy to reveal a few traits to Lamartine and Vigny. But it is Canalis' secretary, Ernest de la Brière, who answers the letters and falls madly in love with Modeste. The deception is discovered when the father of the young girl returns from India, fortune made and more than done. Enticed by the dowry, Canalis rushes to Le Havre, taking Ernest with him. That makes two suitors and there will even be a third: a duke, because Balzac always has a duke in reserve up his pants. Which of the three will win? (French description translated by Google translate)

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781419105340 Rosalie is the only daughter of the Wattevilles, a distinguished family of Besançon. Her father is very timid and spends his time working on a lathe, while her mother is quite proud and domineering. Her mother is trying to encourage Rosalie to take an interest in M. de Soulas, who is a young fop. (wikipedia)

A foreigner—along with his wife and their young daughter—stands before the Tuileries, waiting for an audience with Napoleon. Only the great leader, he reasons, will understand his wretched plight and the vendetta that has driven him here. When Ginevra Piombo falls in love 15 years later with a young Corsican officer hiding from the authorities in the aftermath of Waterloo, she does not realize that this one moment from her past will force her to make the greatest decision of her life: a choice between two loves, and between life or death.

The Rue du Tourniquet-Saint-Jean, formerly one of the darkest and most tortuous of the streets about the Hotel de Ville, zigzagged round the little gardens of the Paris Prefecture, and ended at the Rue Martroi, exactly at the angle of an old wall now pulled down. Here stood the turnstile to which the street owed its name; it was not removed till 1823.

Diese Hardcover-Ausgabe ist Teil der TREDITION CLASSICS. Der Verlag tredition aus Hamburg veröffentlicht in der Buchreihe TREDITION CLASSICS Werke aus mehr als zwei Jahrtausenden. Diese waren zu einem Großteil vergriffen oder nur noch antiquarisch erhältlich. Mit TREDITION CLASSICS verfolgt tredition das Ziel, tausende Klassiker der Weltliteratur verschiedener Sprachen wieder als gedruckte Bücher zu verlegen - und das weltweit! Die Buchreihe dient zur Bewahrung der Literatur und Förderung der Kultur. Sie trägt so dazu bei, dass viele tausend Werke nicht in Vergessenheit geraten.

The brightest memories of the old man faded at the sight of his nephew's so-called mistress. His anger died away at the gracious exclamation which came from his lips as he looked at her. By one of those fortunate accidents which happen only to pretty women, it was a moment when all her beauties shone with peculiar lustre, due perhaps to the wax-lights.

The Marquise de Listomere is one of those young women who have been brought up in the spirit of the Restoration. She has principles, she fasts, takes the sacrament, and goes to balls and operas very elegantly dressed; her confessor permits her to combine the mundane with sanctity. Always in conformity with the Church and with the world, she presents a living image of the present day, which seems to have taken the word "legality" for its motto. The conduct of the marquise shows precisely enough religious devotion to attain under a new Maintenon to the gloomy piety of the last days of Louis XIV., and enough worldliness to adopt the habits of gallantry of the first years of that reign, should it ever be revived. At the present moment she is strictly virtuous from policy, possibly from inclination. Married for the last seven years to the Marquis de Listomere, one of those deputies who expect a peerage, she may also consider that such conduct will promote the ambitions of her family. Some women are reserving their opinion of her until the moment when Monsieur de Listomere becomes a peer of France, when she herself will be thirty-six years of age, - a period of life when most women discover that they are the dupes of social laws.

Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) was a nineteenth-century French novelist and playwright. His Magnum Opus was a sequence of almost 100 novels and plays collectively entitled La Comédie Humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the fall of Napoléon Bonaparte in 1815. Due to his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, Balzac is regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature. He is renowned for his multi-faceted characters; even his lesser characters are complex, morally ambiguous and fully human. Inanimate objects are imbued with character as well; the city of Paris, a backdrop for much of his writing, takes on many human qualities. His writing influenced many famous authors, including the novelists Marcel Proust, Émile Zola, Charles Dickens, Gustave Flaubert, Marie Corelli, Henry James and Jack Kerouac, as well as important philosophers such as Friedrich Engels. Many of Balzac's works have been made into films, and they continue to inspire other writers.

About a hundred yards from the town of Vendôme, on the borders of the Loir, there is an old gray house, surmounted by very high gables, and so completely isolated that neither tanyard nor shabby hostelry, such as you may find at the entrance to all small towns, exists in its immediate neighborhood. In front of this building, overlooking the river, is a garden, where the once well-trimmed box borders that used to define the walks now grow wild as they list. Several willows that spring from the Loire have grown as rapidly as the hedge that encloses it, and half conceal the house. The rich vegetation of those weeds that we call foul adorns the sloping shore. Fruit trees, neglected for the last ten years, no longer yield their harvest, and their shoots form coppices.

The Deserted Woman is a novel written by French author Honore de Balzac. It tells the story of a young woman named Natalie who is left alone and abandoned by her husband, who has fled to America. Natalie is forced to navigate the complexities of society and the challenges of being a single woman in the 19th century. She is pursued by several suitors, including a wealthy banker and a young artist, but struggles to find true love and happiness. Along the way, she encounters a cast of colorful characters, including a scheming aunt and a cunning lawyer. The novel explores themes of love, betrayal, and the role of women in society. With its vivid descriptions of Parisian life and its complex characters, The Deserted Woman is a timeless classic of French literature.The figure of the Vicomtesse de Beauseant rose up suddenly before him with gracious thronging associations. She was a new world for him, a world of fears and hopes, a world to fight for and to conquer. Inevitably he felt the contrast between this vision and the human beings in the shabby room; and then, in truth, she was a woman.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

Gobseck began as a cabin boy and worked his way up while traveling around the world. He became rich and a miser. His philosophy of never helping anyone because "adversity is the greatest of all teachers" was well known. He also believed that all the peoples of the world were really very much alike because money was the greatest common denominator.

Père Goriot is the tragic story of a father whose obsessive love for his two daughters leads to his financial and personal ruin. Interwoven with this theme is that of the impoverished young aristocrat, Rastignac, who came to Paris from the provinces to hopefully make his fortune. He befriends Goriot and becomes involved with the daughters. The story is set against the background of a whole society driven by social ambition and lust for wealth.

Colonel Chabert is a hero of Napoleon's army believed to be killed on the battlefield at Eylau. But he has survived, even though he has lost his memory, and spent several years in an asylum. The novel begins when he returns to Paris, to the life he left behind, only to discover that in his absence his life - family, society, identity - has changed. Napoleon is deposited, the aristocracy has returned to power and it is as if the revolution never took place. His wife, believing that he had died, remarried with an aristocrat. Horrified because she pretends she does not know him, and sick of a society that does not recognize his former merits, Chabert tries to regain both his money and his reputation.

THIS 26 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Country Doctor; Quest of the Absolute and Other Novels, by Honore de Balzac.

An engrossing tale by Balzac – it is remarkable for its masterful blend of realism and romance. Mesmerizing! This EasyRead Large Bold Edition has been optimized for readers with reduced vision who prefer a bold print that stands out and facilitates reading.

Honora de Balzac is considered the founder of social realism. Balzac was the first writer to write about the all social levels of the social scene in France. His vast collection of works encompasses the Restoration period and the July Monarchy. La Comedie Humaine was written between 1799 and 1850. This collection contains 95 novels, stories, and essays. A Marriage Contract (Le contrat de mariage 1835) is part of the Scenes from private life (Scènes de la vie privée) of La Comedie Humaine.

[...] and, above all, a liberal flow of ideas. No one there thinks of keeping his thought for a play; and no one regards a story as material for a book. In short, the hideous skeleton of literature at bay never stalks there, on the prowl for a clever sally or an interesting subject. The memory of one of these evenings especially dwells with me, less by reason of a confidence in which the illustrious de Marsay opened up one of the deepest recesses of woman's heart, [...].

"Ursula" (original French title "Ursule Mirouet," 1842) forms one part of "Scenes from Provincial Life," a series of novels-whose other major work is "Eugenie Grandet"-examining manners and morals in the French provinces. —- Among all the novels of Honore de Balzac (1799-1850), none depicts so penetratingly the small-mindedness, avarice, and envy of the provincial lower middle classes. In "Ursula", no limitations based on morality or decency will hold these people back in their effort to acquire wealth and influence. —- Along with Stendhal, Balzac is the most important French novelist of the first half of the nineteenth century, and a founder of the realistic novel in Europe. His principal work is the unfinished cycle "The Human Comedy" ( "La Comedie Humaine," which includes "Scenes from Provincial Life"), in which he attempted, in more than 80 volumes, to depict the society of his time in its entirety.

"Who is going to marry Eugenie Grandet?" This is the question that fills the minds of the inhabitants of Saumur, the setting for Eugenie Grandet (1833), one of the earliest and most famous novels in Balzac's Comedie humaine. The Grandet household, oppressed by the exacting miserliness of Grandet himself, is jerked violently out of routine by the sudden arrival of Eugenie's cousin Charles, recently orphaned and penniless. Eugenie's emotional awakening, stimulated by her love for her cousin, brings her into direct conflict with her father, whose cunning and financial success are matched against her determination to rebel. Eugenie's moving story is set against the backdrop of provincial oppression, the vicissitudes of the wine trade, and the workings of the financial system in the aftermath of the French Revolution. It is both a poignant portrayal of private life and a vigorous fictional document of its age.

The Vicar Of Tours is a long short story (or, more properly, a novella) by Honoré de Balzac, written in 1832. Originally entitled Les Célibataires (The Celibates), it was published in that year in volume III of the 2nd edition of Scènes de la vie privée, then republished in 1833 and again in 1839, still with the same title but as one of the Scènes de la vie de province. Not until 1843 did it take on its present title of Le Curé de Tours when it appeared in volume II of Scènes de la vie de province (volume VI of his vast narrative series La Comédie humaine). Le Curé de Tours is one of the best known of all Balzac’s fictions. The action of the novella takes place in or near Tours, with a brief excursion to Paris, in the year 1826. At the beginning of the autumn of the year 1826, Abbé Birotteau, the main character of this story, was surprised by a downpour on his way back from the house where he had gone to spend the evening. He therefore crossed as quickly as his plumpness would allow him, the little deserted place called the cloister, which is behind the chevet of Saint-Gatien, at Tours. From this perky beginning, Balzac will produce a dramatic story. But what is surprising is the strength of the conclusion. We live in a time when the failure of governments is to have made society less for man than man for society. There is a perpetual fight between the individual against the system which wants to exploit and which he tries to exploit for his benefit; whereas formerly man, really freer, showed himself more generous for the public good. And the author continues: Couldn't this moral cosmopolitanism, the hope of Christian Rome, be a sublime error? It is so natural to believe in the realization of a noble dream, in the brotherhood of men. But unfortunately! The human machine has not such divine proportions....

Formerly an aide-de-camp to Napoleon but now without prospects, Phillippe Bridau and his younger brother Joseph, a shiftless artist, become entangled in a struggle to recover the family inheritance in a world where "to be without money is to be without power."

A gifted travelling salesman finds his master in a provincial lunatic. A comedic short story written by Balzac in one night.

Balzac, master of the French novel and the author of Pere Goriot, also wrote short stories about life in provincial France. This is a collection of these well-crafted tales. Newly designed and typeset for easy reading by Boomer Books.

Handsome would-be poet Lucien Chardon is poor and naive, but highly ambitious. Failing to make his name in his dull provincial hometown, he is taken up by a patroness, the captivating married woman Madame de Bargeton, and prepares to forge his way in the glamorous beau monde of Paris. But Lucien has entered a world far more dangerous than he realized, as Madame de Bargeton's reputation becomes compromised and the fickle, venomous denizens of the courts and salons conspire to keep him out of their ranks. Lucien eventually learns that, wherever he goes, talent counts for nothing in comparison to money, intrigue and unscrupulousness. Lost Illusions is one of the greatest novels in the rich procession of the Comedie humaine, Balzac's panoramic social and moral history of his times.

Honore de Balzac lived most of his life one step from his creditors; his house in Paris even had a special exit for avoiding them. No one knew more about money problems than Balzac, & this is his subject in Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau—one of Balzac's greatest novels. It's the story of Cesar Birotteau, an honest perfumer who's lured into overextending himself. This luring is the work of the unsavory du Tillet, an employee Birotteau fired for embezzlement. The Embezzler works in secret to take revenge. Take it he does: Birotteau falls hard. But all is not lost—not yet. Anselme Popinot, a brilliant young marketer in love with Birotteau's daughter, works to help Birotteau recover. Perhaps together they can recover Birotteau's honor. Perhaps.

Finance, fashionable society, and the intrigues of the underworld and the police system form the heart of this powerful novel, which introduces the satanic genius Vautrin, one of the greatest villains in world literature.

Websters paperbacks take advantage of the fact that classics are frequently assigned readings in English courses. By using a running English-to-French thesaurus at the bottom of each page, this edition of Facino Cane by Honor de Balzac was edited for three audiences. The first includes French-speaking students enrolled in an English Language Program (ELP), an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) program, an English as a Second Language Program (ESL), or in a TOEFL or TOEIC preparation program. The second audience includes English-speaking students enrolled in bilingual education programs or French speakers enrolled in English-speaking schools. The third audience consists of students who are actively building their vocabularies in French in order to take foreign service, translation certification, Advanced Placement (AP) or similar examinations. By using the Webster's French Thesaurus Edition when assigned for an English course, the reader can enrich their vocabulary in anticipation of an examination in French or English.TOEFL, TOEIC, AP and Advanced Placement are trademarks of the Educational Testing Service which has neither reviewed nor endorsed this book. All rights reserved.Websters edition of this classic is organized to expose the reader to a maximum number of difficult and potentially ambiguous English words. Rare or idiosyncratic words and expressions are given lower priority compared to difficult, yet commonly used words. Rather than supply a single translation, many words are translated for a variety of meanings in French, allowing readers to better grasp the ambiguity of English, and avoid them using the notes as a pure translation crutch. Having the reader decipher a wordsmeaning within context serves to improve vocabulary retention and understanding. Each page covers words not already highlighted on previous pages. If a difficult word is n

Ostensibly a tale of sexual androgyny, the power of love, and its bitter aftermath, this volume is in fact a study of the force of art on society and the deadly immortality of beauty. The nameless narrator attends a ball held by a wealthy Parisian family whose fortune comes from a work of art, and there meets an extraordinary old woman who bears a strange resemblance to the statue depicted in the painting. He returns to his lodgings to tell the tragic, yet ultimately rewarding tale of the creation of the painting's inspiration: a tale of passion, lust, and transexuality, in which music and art, their powers combined, are fatally attracted.

This is an electronic edition of the complete book complemented by author biography. This book features the table of contents linked to every chapter. The book was designed for optimal navigation on the Kindle, PDA, Smartphone, and other electronic readers. It is formatted to display on all electronic devices including the Kindle, Smartphones and other Mobile Devices with a small display.

The Bureaucrats (Les Employes) stands out in Balzac's immense Human Comedy by concentrating precisely and penetratingly on a distinctive "modern" France's state bureaucracy. Rabourdin, aided by his unscrupulous wife, attempts to reorganize and streamline the entire system. Rabourdin's plan will halve the government's size while doubling its revenue. When the plan is leaked, Rabourdin's rival—an utter incompetent—gains the overwhelming support of the frightened and desperate body of low-ranking functionaries. The novel contains the recognizable themes of Balzac's obsessive ambition, conspiracy and human pettiness, and a melodramatic struggle between the social good and the evils of folly and stupidity. It is also an unusual, dramatized analysis of a developing political institution and its role in shaping social class and mentality.

The Wrong Side of Paris, the final novel in Balzac’s The Human Comedy, is the compelling story of Godefroid, an abject failure at thirty, who seeks refuge from materialism by moving into a monastery-like lodging house in the shadows of Notre-Dame. Presided over by Madame de La Chanterie, a noblewoman with a tragic past, the house is inhabited by a remarkable band of men—all scarred by the tumultuous aftermath of the French Revolution—who have devoted their lives to performing anonymous acts of charity. Intrigued by the Order of the Brotherhood of Consolation and their uplifting dedication to virtuous living, Godefroid strives to follow their example. He agrees to travel—incognito—to a Parisian slum to save a noble family from ruin. There he meets a beautiful, ailing Polish woman who lives in great luxury, unaware that just outside her bedroom door her own father and son are suffering in dire poverty. By proving himself worthy of the Brotherhood, Godefroid finds his own spiritual redemption. This vivid portrait of the underbelly of nineteenth-century Paris, exuberantly rendered by Jordan Stump, is the first major translation in more than a century of Balzac’s forgotten masterpiece L’Envers de l’histoire contemporaine. Featuring an illuminating Introduction by Adam Gopnik, this original Modern Library edition also includes explanatory notes. From the Hardcover edition.

Poor, plain spinster Bette is compelled to survive on the condescending patronage of her socially superior relatives in Paris: her beautiful, saintly cousin Adeline, the philandering Baron Hulot and their daughter Hortense. Already deeply resentful of their wealth, when Bette learns that the man she is in love with plans to marry Hortense, she becomes consumed by the desire to exact her revenge and dedicates herself to the destruction of the Hulot family, plotting their ruin with patient, silent malice. Cousin Bette is a gripping tale of violent jealousy, sexual passion and treachery, and a brilliant portrayal of the grasping, bourgeois society of 1840's Paris. The culmination of the Comedie humaine, Balzac's epic chronicle of his times, it is one of his greatest triumphs as a novelist.

Mild, harmless and ugly to behold, the impoverished Pons is an ageing musician whose brief fame has fallen to nothing. Living a placid Parisian life as a bachelor in a shared apartment with his friend Schmucke, he maintains only two a devotion to fine dining in the company of wealthy but disdainful relatives, and a dedication to the collection of antiques. When these relatives become aware of the true value of his art collection, however, their sneering contempt for the parasitic Pons rapidly falls away as they struggle to obtain a piece of the weakening man's inheritance. Taking its place in the Human Comedy as a companion to Cousin Bette, the darkly humorous Cousin Pons is among of the last and greatest of Balzac's novels concerning French urban a cynical, pessimistic but never despairing consideration of human nature. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Set in the aftermath of the French Revolution, this short story from the Scenes of Political Life section of Honore de Balzac's The Human Comedy immerses readers in the terrifying tumult of the period. Brimming with mystery and suspense, this is historical fiction at its very best.

Characterized by amoral ruthlessness, the politics of A Murky Business would seem to bear out Balzac's questionable precept. Set earlier than most of Balzac's Comedie Humaine, the novel covers the years 1803-6, when Napolean was making himself first Consul and then Emperor. The inclusion of Napoleon himself, as well as figures like Talleyrand and Fouche, makes this a historical novel. But it is also an early example of the detective story, in which the sinister, implacable police agent, Corentin, stalks his way towards vengeance on his aristocractic enemies.

Discretion, required in a history of contemporaneous manners and morals, dictates this precautionary word. It is rather an ingenious contrivance to make the description of one town the frame for events which happened in another; and several times already in the course of the Comedy of Human Life, this means has been employed in spite of its disadvantages, which consist chiefly in making the frame of as much importance as the canvas.

The story represents an unusual desert adventure between a female panther and a French soldier who gets lost in the desert after he escapes Arabs' clutches. The soldier keeps company with her, moreover, he tries to tame and control her.

Scenes From Country Life from The Human Comedy (La Comedie Humaine). By the French author, who, along with Flaubert, is generally regarded as a founding-father of realism in European fiction. His large output of works, collectively entitled The Human Comedy (La Comedie Humaine), consists of 95 finished works (stories, novels and essays) and 48 unfinished works. His stories are an attempt to comprehend and depict the realities of life in contemporary bourgeois France. They are placed in a variety of settings, with characters reappearing in multiple stories.

The Lily of the Valley is a tale about love which parodies and depicts French society in the period of the Bourbon Restoration. It concerns the affection—emotionally vibrant but never consummated—between Félix de Vandenesse and Henriette de Mortsauf.

The Country Parson opens with a picturesque portrait of the house in Limoges which became the Sauviat shop and home. Jerome-Baptiste Sauviat is an Auvergnat peddlar specializing in metal. In 1797, at around age fifty and tired of travelling, he married the daughter of a coppersmith named Champagnac. Madame Sauviat, also from Auvergne, was around thirty at the time of their marriage. Both were rough and strong. Though neither could read, when it came to business, both were excellent in arithmetic. Both were religious and freely gave to the parish though they were extremely frugal in their daily living. They have a daughter, Veronique, who is beautiful and charming, a favorite in the entire quarter. The Country Parson/The Village Rector (Le Cure du Village) is not only about the title character, Abbe Bonnet, but focuses more on Veronique de Graslin. (from a Balzac blog

The Wild Ass' Skin is Honoré de Balzac's 1831 novel that tells the story of a young man, Raphaël de Valentin, who discovers a piece of shagreen, in this case a rough untanned piece of a wild ass' skin, which has the magical property of granting wishes. However the fulfillment of the wisher's desire comes at a cost, after each wish the skin shrinks a little bit and consumes the physical energy of the wisher. "The Wild Ass' Skin" is at once both a work of incredible realism, in the descriptions of Parisian life and culture at the time, and also a work of supernatural fantasy, in the desires that are fulfilled by the wild ass' skin. Balzac uses this fantastical device masterfully to depict the complexity of the human nature in civilized society.

Honora de Balzac is considered the founder of social realism. Balzac was the first writer to write about all social levels of the social scene in France. His vast collection of works encompasses the Restoration period and the July Monarchy. La Comedie Humaine was written between 1799 and 1850. This collection contains 95 novels, stories, and essays. Christ in Flanders, written in 1831, is part of the Philosophical studies (Études philosophiques) section of La Comedie Humaine.

...the courtyard of the house on the Rue Richer, the scene again was suddenly changed, and he saw his own house. Jenny was chatting by the fire in her mistress' room with a subaltern officer of a line regiment then stationed at Paris. "He is going, is he?" said the sergeant, who seemed to belong to a family in easy circumstances; "I can be happy at my ease! I love Aquilina too well to allow her to belong to that old toad! I, myself, am going to marry Mme. de la Garde!" cried the sergeant. "Old toad!" Castanier murmured piteously. "Here come the master and mistress; hide yourself! Stay, get in here Monsieur Leon," said Jenny. "The master won't stay here for very long." Castanier watched the sergeant hide himself among Aquilina's gowns in her dressing-room. Almost immediately he himself appeared upon the scene, and took leave of his mistress, who made fun of him in "asides" to Jenny, while she uttered the sweetest and tenderest words in his ears. She wept with one side of her face, and laughed with the other. The audience called for an encore. "Accursed creature!" cried Castanier from his box. Aquilina was laughing till the tears came into her eyes. "Goodness!" she cried, "how funny Perlet is as the Englishwoman! . . . Why don't you laugh? Every one else in the house is laughing. Laugh, dear!" she said to Castanier. Melmoth burst out laughing, and the unhappy cashier shuddered. The Englishman's laughter wrung his heart and tortured his brain; it was as if a surgeon had bored his skull with a red-hot iron. "Laughing! are they laughing!" stammered Castanier. He did not see the prim English lady whom Perlet was acting with such ludicrous effect, nor hear the English-French that had filled the house with roars of laughter; instead of all this, he beheld himself hurrying from the Rue Richer, hailing a cab on the Boulevard, bargaining with the man to take him to Versailles. Then once more the scene changed. He recognized the sorry inn at the corner of the Rue...

One of Honore de Balzac's most celebrated tales, "The Unknown Masterpiece" is the story of a painter who, depending on one's perspective, is either an abject failure or a transcendental genius—or both. The story, which has served as an inspiration to artists as various as Cezanne, Henry James, Picasso, and New Wave director Jacques Rivette, is, in critic Dore Ashton's words, a "fable of modern art." Published here in a new translation by poet Richard Howard, "The Unknown Masterpiece" appears, as Balzac intended, with "Gambara," a grotesque and tragic novella about a musician undone by his dreams. Honoré De Balzac (1799-1850) is generally credited as the inventor of the modern realistic novel. In more than ninety novels, he set forth French society and life as he saw it. He created a cast of over two thousand individual and identifiable characters, some of whom reappear in different novels. He organized his works into his masterpiece, La Comedie Humaine,which was the final result of his attempt to grasp the whole of society and experience into one varied but unified work. Richard Howard was born in Cleveland in 1929. He is the author of fourteen volumes of poetry and has published more than one hundred fifty translations from the French, including works by Gide, Stendhal, de Beauvoir, Baudelaire, and de Gaulle. Howard received a National Book Award for his translation of Fleurs du mal and a Pulitzer Prize for Untitled Subjects, a collection of poetry.

t was sitting by the fire, in a mysterious and magnificent retreat, - now a thing of the past but surviving in our memory, - whence our eyes commanded a view of Paris from the heights of Belleville to those of Belleville, from Montmartre to the triumphal Arc de l'Etoile, that one morning, refreshed by tea, amid the myriad suggestions that shoot up and die like rockets from your sparkling flow of talk, lavish of ideas, you tossed to my pen a figure worthy of Hoffmann, - that casket of unrecognized gems, that pilgrim seated at the gate of Paradise with ears to hear the songs of the angels but no longer a tongue to repeat them, playing on the ivory keys with fingers crippled by the stress of divine inspiration, believing that he is expressing celestial music to his bewildered listeners.

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - As all who are learned in such matters know, the Venetian aristocracy is the first in Europe. Its Libro d'Oro dates from before the Crusades, from a time when Venice, a survivor of Imperial and Christian Rome which had flung itself into the waters to escape the Barbarians, was already powerful and illustrious, and the head of the political and commercial world. With a few rare exceptions this brilliant nobility has fallen into utter ruin. Among the gondoliers who serve the English - to whom history here reads the lesson of their future fate - there are descendants of long dead Doges whose names are older than those of sovereigns. On some bridge, as you glide past it, if you are ever in Venice, you may admire some lovely girl in rags, a poor child belonging, perhaps, to one of the most famous patrician families. When a nation of kings has fallen so low, naturally some curious characters will be met with. It is not surprising that sparks should flash out among the ashes.

In Balzac's classic study of obsession, a chance meeting changes Balthazar Claes' life as it introduces him to alchemy and initiates his quest of the absolute. Throughout, our sympathy is equally divided between Balthazar's single-minded determination to push back the frontiers of knowledge, and the ruin of his family. "The Quest Of The Absolute" Was first published in France in 1834 and appears in a new edition from Dedalus, translated by Ellen Marriage and with an afterword and chronology by Christopher Smith.

1819. On a hot day of summer two hunters, two friends - the Marquis d'Albon and Baron Philippe de Sucy - lost in a forest in the Ile-de-France see a feminine silhouette under the foliage of a abandoned park. In this young woman, unable to do anything but mechanically repeating the single word, "Farewell", the disturbed Philippe recognizes the Countess Stéphanie de Vandières, the mistress he loved passionately and of who he was tragically separated in 1812...

Notwithstanding the discipline which Marechal Suchet had introduced into his army corps, he was unable to prevent a short period of trouble and disorder at the taking of Tarragona. According to certain fair-minded military men, this intoxication of victory bore a striking resemblance to pillage, though the marechal promptly suppressed it. Order being re-established, each regiment quartered in its respective lines, and the commandant of the city appointed, military administration began. The place assumed a mongrel aspect. Though all things were organized on a French system, the Spaniards were left free to follow "in petto" their national tastes. This period of pillage (it is difficult to determine how long it lasted) had, like all other sublunary effects, a cause, not so difficult to discover. In the marechal's army was a regiment, composed almost entirely of Italians and commanded by a certain Colonel Eugene, a man of remarkable bravery, a second Murat, who, having entered the military service too late, obtained neither a Grand Duchy of Berg nor a Kingdom of Naples, nor balls at the Pizzo. But if he won no crown he had ample opportunity to obtain wounds, and it was not surprising that he met with several. His regiment was composed of the scattered fragments of the Italian legion. This legion was to Italy what the colonial battalions are to France. Its permanent cantonments, established on the island of Elba, served as an honorable place of exile for the troublesome sons of good families and for those great men who have just missed greatness, whom society brands with a hot iron and designates by the term "mauvais sujets"; men who are for the most part misunderstood; whose existence may become either noble through the smile of a woman lifting them out of their rut, or shocking at the close of an orgy under the influence of some damnable reflection dropped by a drunken comrade. Napoleon had incorporated these vigorous beings in the sixth of the line, hoping to metamorphose them finally into generals,—barring those whom the bullets might take off. But the emperor's calculation was scarcely fulfilled, except in the matter of the bullets. This regiment, often decimated but always the same in character, acquired a great reputation for valor in the field and for wickedness in private life. At the siege of Tarragona it lost its celebrated hero, Bianchi, the man who, during the campaign, had wagered that he would eat the heart of a Spanish sentinel, and did eat it. Though Bianchi was the prince of the devils incarnate to whom the regiment owed its dual reputation, he had, nevertheless, that sort of chivalrous honor which excuses, in the army, the worst excesses. In a word, he would have been, at an earlier period, an admirable pirate. A few days before his death he distinguished himself by a daring action which the marechal wished to reward. Bianchi refused rank, pension, and additional decoration, asking, for sole recompense, the favor of being the first to mount the breach at the assault on Tarragona. The marechal granted the request and then forgot his promise; but Bianchi forced him to remember Bianchi. The enraged hero was the first to plant our flag on the wall, where he was shot by a monk.

An 1831 short story, Le Réquisitionnaire takes place in November 1793 and features Madame de Dey, a danger seeking aristocrat, whose one love is for her son, the sole heir of the family. Already widowed at the time of the Terror, she has retired from Court and settled in Carentan, where she is apparently the most popular person in town. However, rumours run wild when Madame de Dey's evenings are cancelled twice in a row.

"A Drama on the Seashore" by Honoré de Balzac (translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley). Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

In I know not what year a Parisian banker, who had very extensive commercial relations with Germany, was entertaining at dinner one of those friends whom men of business often make in the markets of the world through correspondence; a man hitherto personally unknown to him. This friend, the head of a rather important house in Nuremburg, was a stout worthy German, a man of taste and erudition, above all a man of pipes, having a fine, broad, Nuremburgian face, with a square open forehead adorned by a few sparse locks of yellowish hair. He was the type of the sons of that pure and noble Germany, so fertile in honorable natures, whose peaceful manners and morals have never been lost, even after seven invasions. This stranger laughed with simplicity, listened attentively, and drank remarkably well, seeming to like champagne as much perhaps as he liked his straw-colored Johannisburger. His name was Hermann, which is that of most Germans whom authors bring upon their scene. Like a man who does nothing frivolously, he was sitting squarely at the banker's table and eating with that Teutonic appetite so celebrated throughout Europe, saying, in fact, a conscientious farewell to the cookery of the great Careme.

Philosophical Studies from The Human Comedy (La Comedie Humaine). Contains The Calvinist Martyr, The Ruggieri's Secret and The Two Dreams. By the French author, who, along with Flaubert, is generally regarded as a founding-father of realism in European fiction. His large output of works, collectively entitled The Human Comedy (La Comedie Humaine), consists of 95 finished works (stories, novels and essays) and 48 unfinished works. His stories are an attempt to comprehend and depict the realities of life in contemporary bourgeois France. They are placed in a variety of settings, with characters reappearing in multiple stories.

The Elixir of Life is a novel written by the renowned French author, Honore De Balzac. The story is set in the early 19th century and revolves around the life of a wealthy and powerful man named Don Juan Faez d'Azhoza. Don Juan is obsessed with the idea of immortality and spends his life searching for the elixir of life, a potion that can grant him eternal youth and vitality.As the story unfolds, we see Don Juan's relentless pursuit of the elixir of life taking him on a journey that is both thrilling and dangerous. He travels to various parts of the world, meets with alchemists and sorcerers, and even goes to the extent of sacrificing human lives in his quest for the elixir.The novel also explores the themes of love, power, and morality. Don Juan's obsession with immortality leads him to neglect his family and loved ones, and he becomes increasingly isolated and detached from the world around him. His pursuit of power and immortality also raises questions about the morality of his actions and the consequences of his choices.Overall, The Elixir of Life is a fascinating and thought-provoking novel that delves into the human desire for immortality and the consequences of such a pursuit. Balzac's vivid prose and complex characters make this book a must-read for anyone interested in philosophy, literature, or the human condition.Or was it, perhaps, that at the outset of an orgy there is a certain unwonted lucidity of mind? Despite the taper light, the clamor of the senses, the gleam of gold and silver, the fumes of wine, and the exquisite beauty of the women, there may perhaps have been in the depths of the revelers' hearts some struggling glimmer of reverence for things divine and human, until it was drowned in glowing floods of wine!This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

"The Exiles" from Honore De Balzac. French novelist and playwright (1799-1850).

Louis Lambert is an 1832 novel by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), included in the Études philosophiques section of his novel sequence La Comédie humaine. Set mostly in a school at Vendôme, it examines the life and theories of a boy genius fascinated by the Swedish philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772). Balzac wrote Louis Lambert during the summer of 1832 while he was staying with friends at the Château de Saché, and published three editions with three different titles. The novel contains a minimal plot, focusing mostly on the metaphysical ideas of its boy-genius protagonist and his only friend (eventually revealed to be Balzac himself). Although it is not a significant example of the realist style for which Balzac became famous, the novel provides insight into the author's own childhood. Specific details and events from the author's life – including punishment from teachers and social ostracism – suggest a fictionalized autobiography. - wikipedia

Balzac begins with a travelogue of the fiords of Norway, concentrating ultimately on one valley that is isolated by the roaring waters of the Sieg River which rises in Sweden and by the forbidding mountains of Jarvis. We begin with two figures cross-country skiing UP a mountain, past unimaginable abysses. One of them is Minna Becker, daughter of the village pastor. The other is a pale young male named Seraphitus, who expertly guides Minna up the slope to an Alpine meadow. (from a blog on Balzac)

It is well known that Balzac had two literary careers—the first, under a pseudonym, writing blood-and-thunder romance novels and the second, under his own name, as the creator of La Comedie Humaine, the vast chronicle of "contemporary life in all its complexity." But, in between these outpourings of fiction, he wrote a work of nonfiction—The Physiology of Marriage—that brought him his first fame as a writer and introduced his now familiar worldview in which passion is held in check by social advantage and blind innocence is the greatest danger to well-being. As forgotten today as Stendhal's much more ardent On Love is renown, The Physiology of Marriage coolly examines the economics and power relationships of seduction and love. Balzac proposes that marriage and the selection of a wife be treated as a science, and examines topics ranging from moral education to methods for foiling adulterous relationships. For all of its apparent misogyny, the Physiology is surprisingly evenhanded in its rough treatment of both men and women (and is said to have been written with the collaboration of two women). Though addressed to a male audience, the book's lively attack on the stale institution of marriage made it most popular with women readers of its day. "'Policy' in marriage consists of taking advantage of all opportunities offered by the laws, by the system of our morals, by force, and by cunning, for preventing your wife from doing the three things that practically constitute the life of writing to her lover, seeing him, and speaking to him."—from The Physiology of Marriage

Per essere felici nella vita di coppia bisogna essere un uomo di genio sposato con una donna tenera e intelligente, oppure ritrovarsi, per effetto di una coincidenza che non è tanto comune quanto si potrebbe pensare, tutti e due particolarmente stupidi . L’ironia punzecchiante di sentenze come questa pervade l’intera scrittura delle Piccole miserie della vita coniugale (1847). Quest’opera curiosa e inattesa – apparsa prima su «Le Diable à Paris», poi su «La Caricature» e «La Presse» – riprende le tematiche che erano già state sollevate nella Fisiologia del matrimonio (1829). Con queste pagine frizzanti il grande maestro francese della narrazione getta un occhio ironico e divertito sulle piccole miserie della vita coniugale.