Honoré de Balzac

Philippe and Joseph Bridau are extremely different brothers. The elder, Philippe, is a superficially heroic soldier. Adored by their mother, Agathe, he is none the less a bitter figure, secretly gambling away her savings after a brief but glorious career in Napoleon's army. His younger brother, Joseph, meanwhile, is fundamentally virtuous - yet their mother is blinded to his kindness by her disapp

Finance, fashionable society, and the intrigues of the underworld and the police system form the heart of this powerful novel, which introduces the satanic genius Vautrin, one of the greatest villains in world literature.

One of Honore de Balzac's most celebrated tales, "The Unknown Masterpiece" is the story of a painter who, depending on one's perspective, is either an abject failure or a transcendental genius--or both. The story, which has served as an inspiration to artists as various as Cezanne, Henry James, Picasso, and New Wave director Jacques Rivette, is, in critic Dore Ashton's words, a "fable of modern ar

Mild, harmless and ugly to behold, the impoverished Pons is an ageing musician whose brief fame has fallen to nothing. Living a placid Parisian life as a bachelor in a shared apartment with his friend Schmucke, he maintains only two a devotion to fine dining in the company of wealthy but disdainful relatives, and a dedication to the collection of antiques. When these relatives become aware of the

Père Goriot is the tragic story of a father whose obsessive love for his two daughters leads to his financial and personal ruin. Interwoven with this theme is that of the impoverished young aristocrat, Rastignac, who came to Paris from the provinces to hopefully make his fortune. He befriends Goriot and becomes involved with the daughters. The story is set against the background of a whole

Honore de Balzac lived most of his life one step from his creditors; his house in Paris even had a special exit for avoiding them. No one knew more about money problems than Balzac, & this is his subject in Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau--one of Balzac's greatest novels. It's the story of Cesar Birotteau, an honest perfumer who's lured into overextending himself. This luring is

""The Girl With The Golden Eyes"" is a novel by French author Honore De Balzac, originally published in 1835. The book tells the story of a young Parisian named Henri de Marsay, who becomes infatuated with a mysterious woman known only as ""the girl with the golden eyes."" Despite her enigmatic nature and the disapproval of his friends, Henri pursues her relentlessly, eventually discovering her da

THIS 26 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Country Doctor; Quest of the Absolute and Other Novels, by Honore de Balzac.

Poor, plain spinster Bette is compelled to survive on the condescending patronage of her socially superior relatives in Paris: her beautiful, saintly cousin Adeline, the philandering Baron Hulot and their daughter Hortense. Already deeply resentful of their wealth, when Bette learns that the man she is in love with plans to marry Hortense, she becomes consumed by the desire to exact her revenge an

By the French author, who, along with Flaubert, is generally regarded as a founding-father of realism in European fiction. His large output of works, collectively entitled The Human Comedy (La Comédie Humaine), consists of 95 finished works (stories, novels and essays) and 48 unfinished works. His stories are an attempt to comprehend and depict the realities of life in contemporary bourgeois Franc

1819.On a hot day of summer two hunters, two friends - the Marquis d'Albon and Baron Philippe de Sucy - lost in a forest in the Ile-de-France see a feminine silhouette under the foliage of a abandoned park. In this young woman, unable to do anything but mechanically repeating the single word, "Farewell", the disturbed Philippe recognizes the Countess Stéphanie de Vandières, the mistress he l

The Wild Ass's Skin is Honoré de Balzac's 1831 novel that tells the story of a young man, Raphaël de Valentin, who discovers a piece of shagreen, in this case a rough untanned piece of a wild ass's skin, which has the magical property of granting wishes. However the fulfillment of the wisher's desire comes at a cost, after each wish the skin shrinks a little bit and consumes the physical en

"Who is going to marry Eugenie Grandet?"This is the question that fills the minds of the inhabitants of Saumur, the setting for Eugenie Grandet (1833), one of the earliest and most famous novels in Balzac's Comedie humaine. The Grandet household, oppressed by the exacting miserliness of Grandet himself, is jerked violently out of routine by the sudden arrival of Eugenie's

"Ursula" (original French title "Ursule Mirouet," 1842) forms one part of "Scenes from Provincial Life," a series of novels-whose other major work is "Eugenie Grandet"-examining manners and morals in the French provinces. --- Among all the novels of Honore de Balzac (1799-1850), none depicts so penetratingly the small-mindedness, avarice, and envy of the provincial lower middle classes. In "Ursula

Do your students enjoy a good laugh? Do they like to be scared? Or do they just like a book with a happy ending? No matter what their taste, our Creative Short Stories series has the answer.We've taken some of the world's best stories from dark, musty anthologies and brought them into the light, giving them the individual attention they deserve. Each book in the series has been designed with today

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 i

This is a reproduction of the original artefact. Generally these books are created from careful scans of the original. This allows us to preserve the book accurately and present it in the way the author intended. Since the original versions are generally quite old, there may occasionally be certain imperfections within these reproductions. We're happy to make these classics available again for fut

Emilie de Fontaine is a spoiled and pround brat. She rejects all suitors her father proposes. She will only marry a peer of France - or not at all! At a ball, she meets the handsome Maximilian. They fall in love. But one day, Emily discovers that Maximilian has a secret...

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the

Scenes From Country Life from The Human Comedy (La Comedie Humaine). By the French author, who, along with Flaubert, is generally regarded as a founding-father of realism in European fiction. His large output of works, collectively entitled The Human Comedy (La Comedie Humaine), consists of 95 finished works (stories, novels and essays) and 48 unfinished works. His stories are an attempt to compre

Handsome would-be poet Lucien Chardon is poor and naive, but highly ambitious. Failing to make his name in his dull provincial hometown, he is taken up by a patroness, the captivating married woman Madame de Bargeton, and prepares to forge his way in the glamorous beau monde of Paris. But Lucien has entered a world far more dangerous than he realized, as Madame de Bargeton's reputation becomes com