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.

Honore de Balzac (1799 - 1850) was a French novelist and playwright. His great work was a series of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comedie humaine, which gives a picture of swathes of French society in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon Bonaparte. Balzac had plenty of experiences to draw upon, he had been an apprentice in a law office, a publisher, printer, businessman, critic, and politician and failed at all of these pursuits. The novels reveal his difficulties with all these careers. Many of these books have been adapted for the screen and to this day they are a source of inspiration for writers, filmmakers and critics. This volume includes the first twenty-one works in La Comedie humaine, in their recommended reading order: 1. Father Goriot 2. The Chouans 3. An Episode Under The Terror 4. Vendetta 5. The Recruit 6. The Red Inn 7. Thought And Act 8. A Double Retribution 9. Juana 10. A Passion In The Desert 11. The Exiles 12. Almae Sorori 13. Christ In Flanders 14. Maitre Cornelius 15. A Second Home 16. An Historical Mystery 17. At The Sign Of The Cat And Racket 18. The Executioner 19. Domestic Peace 20. Louis Lambert 21. The Alkahest

The Virgin had appeared to two children on a hill. By another coincidence, this Saturday was the eve of the Festival of Our Lady of Seven Dolours. And she appeared as Our Lady of Tears in that desert landscape of stubborn rocks and dismal hills. Weeping bitterly, She had uttered reproofs and threats. The fame of this event spread far and wide; frantic thousands scrambled up fearful paths to a spot so high that trees could not grow there. Suddenly the peaks parted, a wide opening brought the train out into broad daylight; the scene lay clear before them, terrible on all sides. "Le Drac " exclaimed the Abbe Gevresin, pointing to a sort of liquid serpent at the bottom of the precipice, writhing and tossing between rocks in the very jaws of the pit.

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. . . 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.