The author of the monumental "La Comedie Humaine", Honore de Balzac was an extraordinarily prolific writer and is regarded as one of the founding fathers of realism. This new biography looks at his remarkable body of work, setting it against his life in nineteenth-century France. A perfect companion[...]
Containing three short works from Honore de Balzac's magnum opus "La Comedie humaine," this collection offers readers a brief glimpse of the poignancy and narrative skill that characterized the work of the great French novelist. The titular story, "The Atheist's Mass," is a tale about the secret of [...]
"Tell me where you eat, what you eat, and at what time you eat, and I will tell you who you are." This is the motto of Anka Muhlstein's erudite and witty book about the ways food and the art of the table feature in Honore de Balzac's "The Human Comedy." Balzac uses them as a connecting thread in his[...]
A hypnotic story of hatred, revenge and catastrophe in which Cousin Bette exacts a terrible price from the rich relations who use and humiliate her. This book portrays the world of post-Napoleonic France, where commercial greed and sexual debauchery are rampant among a demoralized ruling class.[...]