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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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.