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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.
An Unabridged Edition from the Translation by Ernest Dowson -
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
|
R516
R422
Discovery Miles 4 220
Save R94 (18%)
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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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
|
R597
R496
Discovery Miles 4 960
Save R101 (17%)
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Ships in 10 - 15 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.
The text is accompanied by an introduction, textual annotations by
the editor, and a map of Paris. "Responses: Contemporaries and
Other Novelists" illustrates Balzac s immense influence on other
writers, among them Charles Baudelaire, Hippolyte Taine, Emile
Zola, and Marcel Proust. "Twentieth-Century Criticism" presents a
superb selection of critical writing about the novel. The critics
include Ernst Robert Curtius, Albert Beguin, Erich Auerback,
Georges Poulet, Michel Butor, Louis Chevalier, Pierre Barberis,
Peter Brooks, Sandy Petrey, Nicole Mozet, and Janet L. Beizer."
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."
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.
The Physiology of Marriage (1829) is a book length essay by French
writer Honore de Balzac. Written from the point of view of an
author who has overheard scandalous conversations between two
women, The Physiology of Marriage is both a critique of the
institution of marriage and a satirical attempt to scientifically
explain the cause and frequency of marital infidelity. The essay
was an early success for Balzac, gaining him a reputation as a
talented writer and creative critic of contemporary French society.
The essay consists of a series of meditations that approach
marriage through a variety of scientific, philosophical, and
anecdotal methods. Arguing that marriage is an institution that
runs counter to human nature, the author uses questionable
mathematics to calculate the number of married women in France who
are likely to seek out affairs in order to feel a passion denied to
them. Describing the likely signs of marital
infidelity-standoffishness, a change in dress, lack of romance-he
claims that French men have grown far too accepting of their wives'
affairs. Rather than reject the institution altogether-he sees it
as integral to upholding the social order-the author suggests that
young women be allowed a certain amount of freedom to explore their
romantic inclinations and to prepare themselves for the banality of
married life. The Physiology of Marriage finds satire in treating
seriously and scientifically the often hidden and always complex
matters of the heart, as well as through its suggestion that women,
not men, are to blame for the proliferation of infidelity in
France. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally
typeset manuscript, this edition of Honore de Balzac's The
Physiology of Marriage is a classic of French literature reimagined
for modern readers.
The Physiology of Marriage (1829) is a book length essay by French
writer Honore de Balzac. Written from the point of view of an
author who has overheard scandalous conversations between two
women, The Physiology of Marriage is both a critique of the
institution of marriage and a satirical attempt to scientifically
explain the cause and frequency of marital infidelity. The essay
was an early success for Balzac, gaining him a reputation as a
talented writer and creative critic of contemporary French society.
The essay consists of a series of meditations that approach
marriage through a variety of scientific, philosophical, and
anecdotal methods. Arguing that marriage is an institution that
runs counter to human nature, the author uses questionable
mathematics to calculate the number of married women in France who
are likely to seek out affairs in order to feel a passion denied to
them. Describing the likely signs of marital
infidelity-standoffishness, a change in dress, lack of romance-he
claims that French men have grown far too accepting of their wives'
affairs. Rather than reject the institution altogether-he sees it
as integral to upholding the social order-the author suggests that
young women be allowed a certain amount of freedom to explore their
romantic inclinations and to prepare themselves for the banality of
married life. The Physiology of Marriage finds satire in treating
seriously and scientifically the often hidden and always complex
matters of the heart, as well as through its suggestion that women,
not men, are to blame for the proliferation of infidelity in
France. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally
typeset manuscript, this edition of Honore de Balzac's The
Physiology of Marriage is a classic of French literature reimagined
for modern readers.
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Cousin Pons (Paperback)
Honore De Balzac; Contributions by Mint Editions
|
R371
R314
Discovery Miles 3 140
Save R57 (15%)
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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Cousin Pons (1847) is a novel by French author Honore de Balzac.
One of the final works in Balzac's La Comedie humaine sequence,
Cousin Pons originally began as a novella before being extended to
the length of a novel. It serves as both a beautiful meditation on
the nature of Platonic male friendship and a vitriolic condemnation
of the vanity and greed of the French bourgeoisie. In typical
fashion, however, Balzac also turns a critical eye to the lower
class, ensuring his uniquely holistic vision of French society
spares no one-and leaves no stone unturned. When he isn't
performing with a Parisian boulevard orchestra, Sylvain Pons can be
found in deep conversation with his good friend Wilhelm Schmucke,
admiring his collection of paintings, or enjoying a gourmet meal
with his cousins, M. and Mme. Camusot de Marville, whose food he
greatly prefers to that of his landlady's, Mme. Cibot. Pons' life
and company are of little interest to anyone other than his friend
Wilhelm-by family and acquaintances, he is treated at best with
tolerance, and at worst with disdain. After failing to find a
suitable match for their daughter Cecile-which Pons attempts as a
form of repayment for his shared meals with the Camusots-his
cousins dispel him from their home and lives for good. But when
they discover the value of his art collection-as do Mme. Cibot and
several shady characters of the lower classes-a mad scramble ensues
that threatens Sylvain Pons' gentle nature as well as his life.
Cousin Pons, a subtle and underrated novel by Honore de Balzac,
takes an unforgiving look at the consequences of greed as well
exposes the imbalance between the economic and aesthetic values of
art. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset
manuscript, this edition of Honore de Balzac's Cousin Pons is a
classic of French literature reimagined for modern readers.
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Lost Illusions (Hardcover)
Honore De Balzac; Contributions by Mint Editions
|
R918
R754
Discovery Miles 7 540
Save R164 (18%)
|
Ships in 10 - 15 working days
|
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.
|
Cousin Pons (Hardcover)
Honore De Balzac; Contributions by Mint Editions
|
R608
R501
Discovery Miles 5 010
Save R107 (18%)
|
Ships in 10 - 15 working days
|
Cousin Pons (1847) is a novel by French author Honore de Balzac.
One of the final works in Balzac's La Comedie humaine sequence,
Cousin Pons originally began as a novella before being extended to
the length of a novel. It serves as both a beautiful meditation on
the nature of Platonic male friendship and a vitriolic condemnation
of the vanity and greed of the French bourgeoisie. In typical
fashion, however, Balzac also turns a critical eye to the lower
class, ensuring his uniquely holistic vision of French society
spares no one-and leaves no stone unturned. When he isn't
performing with a Parisian boulevard orchestra, Sylvain Pons can be
found in deep conversation with his good friend Wilhelm Schmucke,
admiring his collection of paintings, or enjoying a gourmet meal
with his cousins, M. and Mme. Camusot de Marville, whose food he
greatly prefers to that of his landlady's, Mme. Cibot. Pons' life
and company are of little interest to anyone other than his friend
Wilhelm-by family and acquaintances, he is treated at best with
tolerance, and at worst with disdain. After failing to find a
suitable match for their daughter Cecile-which Pons attempts as a
form of repayment for his shared meals with the Camusots-his
cousins dispel him from their home and lives for good. But when
they discover the value of his art collection-as do Mme. Cibot and
several shady characters of the lower classes-a mad scramble ensues
that threatens Sylvain Pons' gentle nature as well as his life.
Cousin Pons, a subtle and underrated novel by Honore de Balzac,
takes an unforgiving look at the consequences of greed as well
exposes the imbalance between the economic and aesthetic values of
art. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset
manuscript, this edition of Honore de Balzac's Cousin Pons is a
classic of French literature reimagined for modern readers.
|
Cousin Bette (Hardcover)
Honore De Balzac; Contributions by Mint Editions
|
R722
R598
Discovery Miles 5 980
Save R124 (17%)
|
Ships in 10 - 15 working days
|
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 (Paperback)
Honore De Balzac; Contributions by Mint Editions
|
R694
R589
Discovery Miles 5 890
Save R105 (15%)
|
Ships in 10 - 15 working days
|
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.
|
Eugenie Grandet (Paperback)
Honore De Balzac; Contributions by Mint Editions
|
R280
R235
Discovery Miles 2 350
Save R45 (16%)
|
Ships in 10 - 15 working days
|
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.
A Passion in the Desert (1830) is a short story by French author
Honore de Balzac. Written as part of his La Comedie humaine
sequence, A Passion in the Desert is a frequently anthologized work
of short fiction that explores humanity's relationship with nature
as well as the effects of conquest and colonization. The story was
loosely adapted into a 1997 feature film and remains one of
Balzac's most acclaimed works. The story's frame narrative begins
after a man and woman attend a menagerie in Paris. The woman is
horrified by what she has seen: a man working with a tamed hyena as
though it were human. Her companion, the story's narrator, reveals
his experience in these matters, and agrees to tell her a tale
reported to him by a crippled veteran of Napoleon's conquests. This
soldier, he explains, was captured by Ottoman forces during the
emperor's campaign in Egypt. Managing to escape, he fled across the
desert on horseback toward the safety of the Nile. When his horse
died from exhaustion, he continued on foot and discovered, in the
damp protection of a cave, a sleeping panther. Terrified at first,
he slowly came to an understanding with the creature, learning to
live at her side without angering her or falling prey to her animal
hunger. One day, however, emerging from the cave to admire an eagle
in flight, he is struck with the feeling that the panther had
become jealous, and devises a plan to escape her inevitable wrath.
With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset
manuscript, this edition of Honore de Balzac's A Passion in the
Desert is a classic of French literature reimagined for modern
readers.
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