Honor de Balzac (1799-1850) was one of the premiere French novelists. This is a collection of his stories.

Honor de Balzac (1799-1850) was one of the premiere French novelists. This is a collection of his stories.

No further information has been provided for this title.

On a coach ride between towns, a callow young man gets caught up in a round of tale-telling with his fellow passengers and ends up committing an indiscretion that will take a lifetime to undo . . . In the town of Besancon, a cloistered young girl reads a romance penned by a mysterious newcomer and schemes to take the place of the story's real-life inspiration: a beautiful Italian duchess . . . Two lovers stand in defiance of the age-old feud that has decimated their families: a vendetta that even Napoleon Bonaparte himself may be powerless to stop . . . Beginning again in life, whether in one's profession, or, to a lesser extent, for the purpose of concealing one's identity, is the theme that unifies the three stories (A Start in Life, Albert Savarus, and The Vendetta) in this volume of The Human Comedy. Left unfinished at the time of Balzac's death, La Comedie Humaine is a vast literary undertaking composed of some hundred short stories, novellas, and novels set in the shadow of the Napoleonic Wars during the Bourbon Restoration and the July Monarchy. Throughout, Balzac utilizes nineteenth century French society to examine humanity and the human experience with all its attendant virtues, vices, and peculiarities. The third volume of Noumena Press's Human Comedy features detailed background information on each of the stories, 27 illustrations, more than 60 pages of annotations, and two appendices that contain "Journey by Coucou" by Laure Surville (Balzac's sister) and "Mateo Falcone" by Prosper Merimee--stories that were the inspiration for Balzac's A Start in Life and The Vendetta, respectively. "Journey by Coucou" appears in English translation here for the first time. Honore de Balzac (1799-1850) was one of France's most prolific and influential authors. In his lifetime, he worked as a legal clerk, publisher, printer, businessman, and even ran for political office. Failing in all these endeavors, he was nonetheless able to make use of these experiences in his writing to create some of the most memorable stories and characters in French literature.

. . . the chance meeting of a renowned painter and a mysterious girl blossoms into love, but when their ensuing courtship is marred by the disappearance of a purse full of money, their newfound happiness threatens to unravel . . . to the north of Paris in the port city of Le Havre, a drama of love and deception unfolds when the last and fiercely guarded daughter of a once prosperous family falls in love with the verses of a famous poet, but is this great man of letters with whom she enters into an impassioned correspondence really the person she believes him to be? . . . The theme of reality versus illusion, particularly in matters of love, dominates the two works of this second volume (The Purse and Modeste Mignon) of Balzac's magnum opus. Left unfinished at the time of the writer's death, La Comedie Humaine is a vast literary undertaking composed of some hundred short stories, novellas, and novels set in the shadow of the Napoleonic Wars during the Bourbon Restoration and the July Monarchy. Throughout, Balzac utilizes nineteenth century French society to examine humanity and the human experience with all its attendant virtues, vices, and peculiarities.

A painter 's greatest masterpiece is inspired by a young girl of angelic beauty, but their resulting marriage only serves to reveal the deep divide between their true natures . . . a haughty young demoiselle, the last child to marry from an old noble family, is raised to be all too discerning in her choice of a future husband, with tragic consequences . . . a lifelong correspondence between two young women illustrates their different ideas about love and marriage one valuing romance and excitement, the other marital duty but as they begin to live out their philosophies of love and life, one thrives and prospers as a wife and mother while the other is slowly consumed by jealousy . . . These three works (At the Sign of the Cat and Racket, The Ball at Sceaux, and Letters of Two Brides) form the first volume of Balzac 's monumental Com die Humaine. Left unfinished at the time of the writer 's death, it is a vast literary undertaking composed of some hundred short stories, novellas, and novels set in the shadow of the Napoleonic Wars during the Bourbon Restoration and the July Monarchy. Throughout, Balzac utilizes nineteenth century French society to examine humanity and the human experience with all its attendant virtues, vices, and peculiarities. The works in this volume are preceded by an introduction in which the author sets forth the history of the project and explains his principles of composition. Following the authoritative French Pl iade edition in the ordering of the stories, Noumena Press plans to release Balzac 's complete magnum opus in a set of forty-five matching volumes, each one newly annotated, edited, and with the original illustrations from the Furne edition of 1842.

The story revolves round the angelic and mysterious hermaphrodite Seraphita who seems to inspire love in all she meets. The battle for her affection leads Wilf and Minna past earthly knowledge and into the deeper mysteries of life. Set against the rugged landscape of 18th century Norway, Seraphita is the most unusual and bizarre novel in Balzac's Comedie Humaine.