'The Ball at Sceaux' is one of the oldest books in Balzac's 'The Human Comedy' series. It tells the story of Émilie de Fontaine, a pretentious and spoiled young lady who refuses...

In 'Ferragus, Chief of the Devorants' Balzac skillfully traces a dazzling panorama of 19th century Parisian streets and vividly invokes a sparkling menagerie of characters in...

For a very long time Monsieur de Merret has been suspecting his wife of infidelity. One night he comes home earlier than usual and knocks on the door of his wife’s chamber....

Set in early 19th-century Paris, it tells the story of a young man who finds a magic piece of shagreen that fulfills his every desire. For each wish granted, however, the skin...

Le Père Goriot (Old Goriot or Father Goriot) is an 1835 novel by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), included in the Scènes de...

Lucien Chardon, the son of a lower middle-class father and an impoverished mother of remote aristocratic descent, is the pivotal figure of the entire work. Living at Angouleme, he...

“The Vendetta” is a novel by the French writer Honoré de Balzac. It is the eighth of the Scènes de la vie privée (Scenes of Private Life) in La...

'Eugenie Grandet' is one of the earliest and most famous novels in Balzac's 'The Human Comedy' cycle. The dreary Grandet household, inundated by the overwhelming greed and...

Exquisitely deploying the story-within-a-story narrative, 'Honorine' is a tale casting piercing insight into the fabric of the human condition. Comtesse Honorine de Bauvan was...

When the narrator and his wife visit an idyllic and picturesque town near the sea they meet a fisherman and a hermit. The ubiquitous poverty and squalor of the seaside town spills...