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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.
Eugenie Grandet (1833) is a novel by French author Honore de
Balzac. Written as Balzac began to formulate the grand scale of his
La Comedie humaine sequence, Eugenie Grandet was eventually tied
into the universe of his epic realist masterpiece, a holistic
vision of nineteenth-century French society which sought to observe
the consequences of the political, religious, and economic shifts
of the Revolution and in its aftermath. This novel looks to the
moral failings of a particular nouveau riche family, whose
accumulation of wealth has quickly erased any sense of their
working-class origins. After the Revolution, master cooper Felix
Grandet married the daughter of a successful merchant, ascended in
the political and social life of the town of Saumur, and quietly
amassed an immense wealth through industry and inheritances from
his wife's family. Now an old man, Felix possesses a fortune he
feels no inclination to use, not even to improve the daily lives of
his ailing wife and young adult daughter Eugenie, who faces
frequent incursions from local suitors intent on marrying her to
attain her father's wealth. When Felix's nephew Charles arrives
from Paris with a letter from the patriarch's estranged brother
Guillaume, tragic circumstances force him to choose between
habitual greed and the immense pressure of performing what for
anyone else would be a basic act of generosity. Eugenie Grandet is
a powerful story of fortune, power, and the ease with which these
lead to moral failure. Published at the dawning of Balzac's most
productive and critically-acclaimed period, this novel is not only
a good introduction to his lengthy La Comedie humaine sequence, but
an irreplaceable work of nineteenth-century realist literature.
With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset
manuscript, this edition of Honore de Balzac's Eugenie Grandet is a
classic of French literature reimagined for modern readers.
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Father Goriot (Hardcover)
Honore De Balzac; Contributions by Mint Editions
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R431
Discovery Miles 4 310
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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Father Goriot (1835) is a novel by French author Honore de Balzac.
An early work in his La Comedie humaine sequence, Father Goriot has
since become one of Balzac's most critically and commercially
successful novels. It contains several characters who appear
throughout his other books and is considered to be the first novel
in which he perfected his hallmark realist style. The novel, set in
Paris, follows Eugene de Rastignac, a young law student who lives
at a boarding house owned by a widow named Madame Vauquer. Her
other residents include Jean-Joachim Goriot, a retired businessman
whose fortune has been spent on his two adult daughters, and
Vautrin, a hardened and mysterious criminal. As Rastignac navigates
urban life, he develops a fascination with high society that soon
turns into an unhealthy obsession with joining the ranks of the
wealthy. Although he falls in love with Goriot's daughter Delphine,
a married woman, Rastignac is pressured by Vautrin to court the
young unmarried Victorine. Proposing they attempt to steal her
family's fortune-for which he offers to have her brother
murdered-Vautrin does his best to corrupt the young and ambitious
Rastignac, who will gradually be forced to choose between a life of
luxury and a life of moral decency. In the background of their
plotting, the story of Father Goriot unfolds, a tragic portrait of
a man who gives everything to his family while wanting nothing more
than their love and respect in return. Father Goriot is a complex
yet effective novel. Criticized for extensive pessimism upon
publication, its reputation for brutal honesty and social realism
have aided its reception in recent years, and it is now considered
one of Balzac's most important works. With a beautifully designed
cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Honore
de Balzac's Father Goriot is a classic of French literature
reimagined for modern readers.
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