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Fiction. Short Story. Translated from the French by Anthony
Rudolph. GILLETTE OR THE UNKNOWN MASTERIECE is one of Balzac's most
brilliant and fascinating works, and one of the great short stories
in European literature. It has been widely influential among
painters and writers since its early editions, and speaks to our
own days in unexpected ways. Anthony Rudolf has made the first
complete translation into English in over eighty years. In a long
accompanying essay he discusses the text as a love story, as a
parable of writing told in terms of painting, and as a remarkable
foreshadowing of certain later developments in art, such as the
work of Giacometti. He also discusses the sexual, mythological,
financial and other aspects of this extraordinary multi-layered
text, and vigorously contests the widespread view that Frenhofer is
nothing but a failure and his painting nothing but a disaster. This
reprint marks Balzac's bicentenary and Menard's 30th birthday.
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.
Honore de Balzac (1799-1850) utilizo la escritura como una
formidable palanca hacia un ascenso social que le era negado. Su
obra, desmesurada e innovadora, recogio el impulso de la naciente
ciencia de su siglo en un esfuerzo titanico por describir y
reflejar la sociedad circundante. El tio Goriot (1835) es una de
sus obras mas celebradas, novela bellisima de trama nocturna,
impregnada de una tristeza omnipresente, cuyo verdadero
protagonista es la ciudad de Paris.
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Eugenie Grandet (Hardcover)
Honore De Balzac; Contributions by Mint Editions
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R516
R422
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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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R597
R496
Discovery Miles 4 960
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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.
'This is as much a mystery as the Immaculate Conception, which of
itself must make a doctor an unbeliever.' A stunning pair of short
stories about faith and sacrificial love. Introducing Little Black
Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black
Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin
Classics, with books from around the world and across many
centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London
to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to
16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories
lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and
inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.
Honore de Balzac (1799-1850). Balzac's works available in Penguin
Classics are Old Man Goriot, Cousin Bette, History of The Thirteen,
Selected Short Stories, Cousin Pons, A Harlot High and Low, Eugenie
Grandet, The Wild Ass's Skin, The Black Sheep and Lost Illusions.
Characters from every corner of society and all walks of life-lords
and ladies, businessmen and military men, poor clerks, unforgiving
moneylenders, aspiring politicians, artists, actresses, swindlers,
misers, parasites, sexual adventurers, crackpots, and more-move
through the pages of The Human Comedy, Balzac's multivolume magnum
opus, an interlinked chronicle of modernity in all its splendor and
squalor. The Human Comedy includes the great roomy novels that have
exercised such a sway over Balzac's many literary inheritors, from
Dostoyevsky and Henry James to Marcel Proust; it also contains an
array of short fictions in which Balzac is at his most concentrated
and forceful. Nine of these, all newly translated, appear in this
volume, and together they provide an unequaled overview of a great
writer's obsessions and art. Here are "The Duchesse de Langeais,"
"A Passion in the Desert," and "Sarrasine"; tales of madness,
illicit passion, ill-gotten gains, and crime. What unifies them,
Peter Brooks points out in his introduction, is an incomparable
storyteller's fascination with the power of storytelling, while
throughout we also detect what Proust so admired: the "mysterious
circulation of blood and desire."
The Way That Girls Love; How Much Love Costs Old Men; The End Of
Bad Roads; The Last Incarnation Of Vautrin.
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. Another Study of a Woman
(Autre etude de femme, 1842) can be found in Scenes from private
life (Scenes de la vie privee) section of the La Comedie Humaine.
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Sarrasine (Paperback)
Honore De Balzac; Contributions by Mint Editions
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R161
R140
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Sarrasine (1831) is a novella by French author Honore de Balzac.
Written as part of his La Comedie humaine sequence, Sarrasine is
one of Balzac's earliest works published without a pseudonym and
helped to establish his reputation as a serious writer and
distinguished member of Parisian high society. Noted for its
controversial exploration of homosexuality and castration, Balzac's
novella would become the subject of Roland Barthe's groundbreaking
work of literary criticism, S/Z (1970). Composed as a frame
narrative, Sarrasine begins during a ball at the mansion of the
wealthy Monsieur de Lanty. The unnamed narrator, from a window
overlooking the garden, listens to the conversations of partygoers
and watches as his guest, Beatrix Rochefide, is approached by a
mysterious older man. The next night, the narrator tells Beatrix a
story involving the man, a respected member of de Lanty's circle.
He begins with the life of Ernest-Jean Sarrasine, a successful
young sculptor who, on a trip to Rome, fell in love with an opera
star named Zambinella. Convinced she represents the ideal feminine
form, he rejects Zambinella's misgivings and vague excuses,
becoming increasingly obsessed with the beautiful singer. Devising
a plan to kidnap Zambinella during a party at the French embassy,
Sarrasine discovers the truth: the singer is a castrato, a
classical operatic performer who was selected and castrated before
puberty. Sarrasine, a powerful novella, explores themes of
idealization and obsession while illuminating the conflation of sex
and gender. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally
typeset manuscript, this edition of Honore de Balzac's Sarrasine is
a classic of French literature reimagined for modern readers.
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Cousin Bette (Paperback)
Honore De Balzac; Contributions by Mint Editions
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R486
R411
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Cousin Bette (1846) is a novel by French author Honore de Balzac.
Part of Balzac's La Comedie humaine sequence, the novel is
recognized as being the author's last fully-realized work, and
features several characters who appear elsewhere throughout his
legendary series. It has inspired several film and television
adaptations, as well as earned comparisons to Shakespeare's Othello
and Tolstoy's War and Peace. The novel focuses on the life and
exploits of Bette Fischer, a 42-year-old woman whose bitterness at
remaining unmarried-despite several proposals by men she deemed
unworthy-drives her to ruin the reputations and lives of her
extended family. After rescuing the young sculptor Wenceslas
Steinbock from suicide, Bette develops a complex affection for the
man. When he falls in love with Hortense, the daughter of Bette's
cousin Adeline, she hatches a plan to gain revenge for this
perceived personal slight. She recruits the young and beautiful
Valerie Marneffe-an unhappily married woman-to seduce Adeline's
husband, Baron Hector Hulot, whose uncontrolled desires and
extensive vanity both test his family's loyalty and stretch their
finances to the furthest possible limit. Cousin Bette is an intense
psychological drama and character study that burns with the fire of
Balzac's critique of French society. While exposing the depths of
human immorality-particularly where money is made the center of
personal relationships-Balzac manages to remind us that what makes
us human is not what drives us apart, but the lengths to which we
will go to cultivate love despite our basest impulses. To read
Cousin Bette is to observe the hopes, flaws, and desires of the
people of nineteenth century France, but to ultimately judge
ourselves. This final masterpiece of Honore de Balzac is a
testament to the skill and dedication of one of history's finest
literary minds. With a beautifully designed cover and
professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Honore de
Balzac's Cousin Bette is a classic of French literature reimagined
for modern readers.
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Lost Illusions (Hardcover)
Honore De Balzac; Contributions by Mint Editions
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R918
R754
Discovery Miles 7 540
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Lost Illusions (1837-1843) is a novel by French author Honore de
Balzac. Written as part of his La Comedie humaine sequence, Lost
Illusions looks at scenes of Parisian and provincial life involving
friendship, desire, and literary ambition. Inspired by his own
experiences as a journalist and publisher, Balzac sought to tell a
story adjacent to his own, a story concerning a young man for whom
talent is abundant but recognition is woefully scarce. The novel's
protagonist, Lucien Chardon, features in Balzac's work A Harlot
High and Low, as does the villain Vautrin, who appears toward the
end of Lost Illusions and throughout Father Goriot, one of author's
most popular and enduring works. The son of a middle-class father
and aristocratic mother, Lucien Chardon is a promising young poet.
He lives in Angouleme with his now-impoverished mother-who is also
a widow-and his sister Eve. In the province, he spends his days
with his loyal friend David Sechard, who encourages his literary
lifestyle while studying to be a scientist. David's eventual
marriage to Eve only brings the two friends closer together, but
when Lucien meets the wealthy and influential Mme. de Bargeton,
with whom he flees to Paris, their friendship is lost to Lucien's
unstoppable ambition. In the city, abandoned by Mme. de Bargeton
and living under his mother's maiden name, Lucien de Rubempre
sacrifices morality, friendship, and family at the altar of poetry,
slowly becoming another person altogether. Lost Illusions is one of
Balzac's most sustained character studies, a novel which critiques
humanity and high society as much as it does his own commercial
interests as a professional writer. With a beautifully designed
cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Honore
de Balzac's Lost Illusions is a classic of French literature
reimagined for modern readers.
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The Deserted Woman (Paperback)
Honore De Balzac; Contributions by Mint Editions
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R161
R140
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When young Gaston moves to Bayeux, a small province in Normandy, he
feels stranded. Though he would rather spend his time in the
capital city, Gaston must stay in Bayeux until he recovers from his
illness. He feels unsatisfied and bored, until he hears the rumor
about a woman living as a recluse on the countryside. Victomtesse
de Beauseant is a beautiful woman who had been abandoned by her
husband many years ago. Devastated, and now stuck in a loveless
marriage because she cannot get a divorce, she lives in isolation.
Gaston is moved by her story and becomes fixated, desperate to meet
her. When he finally gets the courage to visit her home,
Victomtesse de Beauseant is flattered by his infatuation, and
despite her being ten years his senior, Beauseant and Gaston become
lovers. However, their private paradise is soon interrupted by
Gaston's disapproving mother, who is pressuring him to marry a
woman he does not love. As rumors grow and Gaston's mother becomes
more persistent, Gaston and Victomtesse's love is tested and
threatened like never before. The Deserted Woman exemplifies Honore
de Balzac's extraordinary literary ability that has influenced
esteemed authors such as Henry James and Charles Dickens. With
intricate prose and unparalleled compassion, Honore de Balzac
explores the too-common predicament of women trapped in unhappy
relationships. The Deserted Woman tells the emotional tale of the
pressure society put on women and men to enter marriages that
prioritized social and financial compatibility over a real, mutual,
love connection. Though it does not exist to such an extent in
Western society, Balzac's The Deserted Woman invites readers to
consider how this spirit of unhealthy marriages is still alive in
modern relationships. Balzac dedicated much of his career to the
pursuit of capturing all aspects of society with his realist lens,
creating celebrated work that influences the perspective of
society. This edition of The Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac
features a striking new cover design and is reprinted in a modern,
easy-to-read font, creating an approachable reading experience for
a contemporary audience.
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Eugenie Grandet (Paperback)
Honore De Balzac; Contributions by Mint Editions
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R280
R235
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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.
Beginning with a visceral description of the society and politics
of Paris, The Girl with the Golden Eyes considers the sex life of
the upper class by its raw depiction of the underside of Parisian
life. Henri de Marsay is a young, rich man who is nearly devoid of
morals and virtue. After he meets Paquita Valdes, a mysterious and
beautiful woman, he becomes infested with a deviant lust for her.
When his plan to seduce her succeeds, Henri and Paquita maintain an
intensely sexual relationship. However, when Henri starts to
suspect Paquita is involved with another lover, he becomes
overwhelmed with rage and jealousy. As he allows this emotion to
cloud his judgement and conscience, Henri's possessiveness plots a
heinous act-immoral even by his questionable standards, leading to
shocking discoveries and sick twists. The surprise and awe invoked
by Honore de Balzac's The Girl with the Golden Eyes ensures a
memorable narrative that has won the attention of critics and
inspired a 1961 film adaptation. With elements of homosexuality,
sexual slavery, incest and violence, The Girl with the Golden Eyes
is a lustful tale that remains to be appalling and taboo. With raw
and ruthless realism, Honore de Balzac creates a portrait and
reflection of an entire society through the vivid depiction of
Paris and the specific amorous vice of the protagonists. While
exploring the vices of the Parisian upper class, The Girl with the
Golden Eyes also invites reflection on the brutal effects misogyny
and ill-intended men have on women, exposing a truth that is still
applicable to modern society. Though The Girl with the Golden Eyes
has traditionally been published among a collection, this edition
of Honore de Balzac's work stands alone in the spotlight it has
earned. Featuring a brand new, eye-catching cover design and a
modern, readable font, this edition of The Girl with the Golden
Eyes is accessible to contemporary audiences and encourages
conversation on torrid and taboo affairs.
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