Balzac, Honore de
Nineteenth-century French novelist, one of the creators of Realism in literature. His Human Comedy (La Comedie humaine), spanning more than 90 novels and short stories, is a broad, often satirical panorama of French society, particularly the petite bourgeoisie, in the years after the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Along with Gustave Flaubert (whose work he influenced), Balzac is generally regarded as a founding father of realism in European literature. Balzac's novels, most of which are farcical comedies, feature a large cast of well-defined characters, and descriptions in exquisite detail of the scene of action.
See also:
Total eBooks of selected author: 110 on 11 pages.
by
CHAPTER I. THE LAST WORD OF TWO GREAT COQUETTES
After the disasters of the revolution of July, which destroyed so many aristocratic fortunes dependent on the court, Madame la Princesse de Cadignan was clever enough to attribute to political events the total ruin she had caused by her own extravagance. The prince left France with the royal family, and never returned to it, leaving the princess in Paris, ... more...
by
CHAPTER I. SERAPHITUS
As the eye glances over a map of the coasts of Norway, can the imagination fail to marvel at their fantastic indentations and serrated edges, like a granite lace, against which the surges of the North Sea roar incessantly? Who has not dreamed of the majestic sights to be seen on those beachless shores, of that multitude of creeks and inlets and little bays, no two of them alike, yet all ... more...
by
CHAPTER I. EXPOSITION
Notwithstanding the discipline which Marechal Suchet had introduced into his army corps, he was unable to prevent a short period of trouble and disorder at the taking of Tarragona. According to certain fair-minded military men, this intoxication of victory bore a striking resemblance to pillage, though the marechal promptly suppressed it. Order being re-established, each regiment ... more...
by
CHAPTER I. THE CHATEAU
Les Aigues, August 6, 1823.
To Monsieur Nathan,
My dear Nathan,—You, who provide the public with such delightful dreams through the magic of your imagination, are now to follow me while I make you dream a dream of truth. You shall then tell me whether the present century is likely to bequeath such dreams to the Nathans and the Blondets of the year 1923; you shall estimate the ... more...
by
CHAPTER I. THAT WHICH WAS LACKING TO PIERROTIN'S HAPPINESS
Railroads, in a future not far distant, must force certain industries to disappear forever, and modify several others, more especially those relating to the different modes of transportation in use around Paris. Therefore the persons and things which are the elements of this Scene will soon give to it the character of an archaeological work. Our ... more...
by
CHAPTER I. DEPARTING PARIS
The tourniquet Saint-Jean, the narrow passage entered through a turnstile, a description of which was said to be so wearisome in the study entitled "A Double Life" (Scenes from Private Life), that naive relic of old Paris, has at the present moment no existence except in our said typography. The building of the Hotel-de-Ville, such as we now see it, swept away a whole section of the ... more...
by
STUDY OF A WOMAN
The Marquise de Listomere is one of those young women who have been brought up in the spirit of the Restoration. She has principles, she fasts, takes the sacrament, and goes to balls and operas very elegantly dressed; her confessor permits her to combine the mundane with sanctity. Always in conformity with the Church and with the world, she presents a living image of the present day, which ... more...
by
CHAPTER I. TWO CHILDHOODS
To what genius fed on tears shall we some day owe that most touching of all elegies,—the tale of tortures borne silently by souls whose tender roots find stony ground in the domestic soil, whose earliest buds are torn apart by rancorous hands, whose flowers are touched by frost at the moment of their blossoming? What poet will sing the sorrows of the child whose lips must suck ... more...
by
THE RECRUIT
At times they saw him, by a phenomenon of vision or locomotion,abolish space in its two forms of Time and Distance; the formerbeing intellectual space, the other physical space.Intellectual History of Louis Lambert.
On an evening in the month of November, 1793, the principal persons of Carentan were assembled in the salon of Madame de Dey, where they met daily. Several circumstances which would ... more...
by
LOUIS LAMBERT
Louis Lambert was born at Montoire, a little town in the Vendomois, where his father owned a tannery of no great magnitude, and intended that his son should succeed him; but his precocious bent for study modified the paternal decision. For, indeed, the tanner and his wife adored Louis, their only child, and never contradicted him in anything.
At the age of five Louis had begun by reading the ... more...
