Balzac, Honoré de 1799-1850
Works: | 16,432 works in 67,056 publications in 46 languages and 544,251 library holdings |
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Genres: | Fiction History Biographies Bildungsromans Domestic fiction Criticism, interpretation, etc Short stories Allegories Historical fiction Novels |
Roles: | Author, Bibliographic antecedent, Creator, Contributor, Other, Editor, Honoree, Translator, Dedicatee, Publishing director, Printer, Recipient, Composer, Author of introduction, Narrator, 070, Lyricist, Correspondent, Illustrator, Compiler, Conceptor, Librettist, Adapter, Defendant, Bookseller, Speaker |
Classifications: | PQ2168, 843.7 |
- Prometheus : the life of Balzac by André Maurois( Book )
- Eavesdropping in the novel from Austen to Proust by Ann Elizabeth Gaylin( )
- Balzac by Stefan Zweig( Book )
- Balzac's comedy of words by Martin Kanes( )
- Circumstances : chance in the literary text by David F Bell( )
- The poetics of death : the short prose of Kleist and Balzac by Beatrice Martina Guenther( )
- Real time : accelerating narrative from Balzac to Zola by David F Bell( )
- Balzac, James, and the realistic novel by William W Stowe( )
- Dostoevsky and romantic realism : a study of Dostoevsky in relation to Balzac, Dickens, and Gogol by Donald Fanger( Book )
- Balzac and his world by Félicien Marceau( Book )
- Melville's intervisionary network : Balzac, Hawthorne, and realism in the American renaissance by John Haydock( )
- Balzac by V. S Pritchett( Book )
- The gates of horn; a study of five French realists by Harry Levin( Book )
- Silences du roman : Balzac et le romanesque contemporain by Aline Mura-Brunel( )
- The reappearing characters in Balzac's Comédie humaine by Arthur Graves Canfield( )
- Honoré de Balzac by Diana Festa-McCormick( Book )
- Balzac : a life by Graham Robb( Book )
- The melodramatic imagination : Balzac, Henry James, melodrama, and the mode of excess by Peter Brooks( Book )
- Balzac's recurring characters by Anthony R Pugh( Book )
- Balzac and the human comedy by Philippe Bertault( Book )


2,496 editions published between 1834 and 2021 in 32 languages and held by 17,180 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
At the shabby boarding house in the rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève, petty Madame Vauquer and her tenants wonder at the plight of the aging resident Goriot. Once a well-heeled merchant, Goriot was--at first--afforded special treatment from the Madame. But now something is clearly amiss in his financial affairs, and his increasingly tawdry appearance makes him a subject of ridicule in the household. Some think he lost in the markets, others see him as a lecherous patron of prostitutes, but one thing is clear: his selflessness and complete devotion to his two daughters
2,375 editions published between 1832 and 2022 in 34 languages and held by 13,733 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
Depicting the fatal clash between material desires and the liberating power of human passions, Honore de Balzac's Eugenie Grandet is translated with an introduction by M.A. Crawford in Penguin Classics. In a gloomy house in provincial Saumur, the miser Grandet lives with his wife and daughter, Eugenie, whose lives are stifled and overshadowed by his obsession with gold. Guarding his piles of glittering treasures and his only child equally closely, he will let no one near them. But when the arrival of her handsome cousin, Charles, awakens Eugenie's own desires, her passion brings her into a violent collision with her father that results in tragedy for all. Eugenie Grandet is one of the earliest and finest works in Balzac's Comedie humaine cycle, which portrays a society consumed by the struggle to amass wealth and achieve power. Here Grandet embodies both the passionate pursuit of money, and the human cost of avarice. M.A. Crawford's lucid translation is accompanied by an introduction discussing the irony and psychological insight of Balzac's characterization, the role of fate in the novel, its setting and historical background. - Amazon (summary for a later edition of this title)
930 editions published between 1 and 2020 in 19 languages and held by 8,653 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
Set in mid-19th century Paris, it tells the story of an unmarried middle-aged woman who plots the destruction of her extended family
1,196 editions published between 1800 and 2022 in 18 languages and held by 7,959 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
The imaginative breadth and the intellectual depth of [this novel] make it one of the greatest of Balzac's "Etudes philosophiques'. With its central symbol of the magic piece of shagreen, it expresses the peculiarly Balzacian idea of the human will and dramatizes with startling urgency the choice between ruthless self-gratification and asceticism, between vice and virtue, between dissipation and restraint. The symbolism is powerful but not overpowering: shrewd psychology, superbly chiselled dialogue and the sheer energy of the descriptive passages - the gambling den, the orgy, the devastating finale - give [the novel] a compelling and forceful realism.-Back cover
898 editions published between 1837 and 2022 in 17 languages and held by 6,186 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
Lucien Chardon, an aspiring young poet leaves his small provincial hometown and attempts to succeed in the Parisian literary circles of the early 19th century. He is befriended by aristocratic patrons but finds himself relentlessly drawn to the low life of the big city
888 editions published between 1800 and 2020 in 16 languages and held by 5,996 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
The correspondence between a young Frenchman and his fiancée on the subject of love reveals the differences in the two sex's approach to the subject
704 editions published between 1800 and 2019 in 10 languages and held by 4,776 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
"Dr. Benassis is a compassionate and conscientious physician who ministers to the psychological and spiritual as well as physical needs of the villagers among whom he has chosen to practice medicine. He has been instrumental in transforming the once-impoverished community into a progressive and healthy town, and he is now also its elected mayor. To Genestas, a soldier at a nearby military garrison, Dr. Benassis relates stories of the transformation he has wrought and eventually imparts the secrets of his buried past. Genestas asks the doctor to care for his sickly 16-year-old adopted son. Later, in gratitude for his son’s recovery, Genestas swears that he will settle in the village and carry on the doctor’s good and noble work."--Encyclopedia Britannica
761 editions published between 1846 and 2022 in 10 languages and held by 4,757 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
A tender spirited story of friendship and the family in nineteenth-century Paris
637 editions published between 1827 and 2021 in 10 languages and held by 4,486 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
"The Chouans" is the tale of the Royalist uprising in Brittany against the post-revolutionary republic. -- From product description
603 editions published between 1800 and 2019 in 15 languages and held by 4,449 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
Hither, at the close of the year 1820, came a woman, still young, well known in Paris for her charm, her fair face, and her wit; and to the immense astonishment of the little village a mile away, this woman of high rank and corresponding fortune took up her abode at Saint-Lange
618 editions published between 1832 and 2021 in 13 languages and held by 4,386 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
"Busy Parisian lawyer Monsieur Derville has inordinate demands on his time, and so is reluctant to grant an audience to an elderly, impoverished gentleman who turns up at his office unannounced. Yet this man is Chabert, a colonel who was left for dead on the battlefield of Eylau, and who has spent years as an amnesiac in an asylum." "Colonel Chabert's dramatic return to the life he left behind brings with it the shock that, in his absence, his entire life - family, society, identity - has changed. With Napoleon deposed, France's aristocracy has returned to power, almost as if the Revolution had never happened. And with Chabert supposedly dead, his wife has taken the opportunity to climb the social ladder, and has made an advantageous marriage. Sickened by her pretence not to recognise him, and by the titled society that spurns his former meritorious deeds, Chabert enlists Derville's help, and vows to recover his money, his reputation and his name."--BOOK JACKET
251 editions published between 1822 and 2022 in 7 languages and held by 3,889 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing this classic in an affordable, high quality, modern edition, using the original text and artwork
403 editions published between 1800 and 2022 in 10 languages and held by 3,809 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
"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. No limitations based on morality or decency will hold these people back in their effort to acquire wealth and influence"--Page 4 of cover
375 editions published between 1837 and 2018 in 14 languages and held by 3,707 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
This story is one of Balzac's "Scenes de la Vie Privee" within the "Comedie Humaine" sequence, and describes the irresistible rise and fall of a perfume merchant in the Rue St Honore. This novel is the French 19th-century's great poem of bankruptcy--
681 editions published between 1829 and 2014 in 10 languages and held by 3,332 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
Includes t.p. and frontis. from [v. 1], The Wild ass' skin ... and other stories; the introduction and 10 leaves of text; plates from other v. of this ed.; bound in gray cloth with sample spine binding (gray cloth with paper label printed in red and black) mounted inside back cover
221 editions published between 1833 and 2021 in 10 languages and held by 3,243 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
On the darker side of Parisian society, Henry de Marsay believes only in himself and in his cultural Paris world, until he sees the girl called Paquita Valdes and elaborately plots her seduction. In his fervor, it is only too late that he realizes he has a rival to the inaccessible Paquita ... a woman revealed to be his half-sister, the Marquise de San-Real
289 editions published between 1836 and 2019 in 7 languages and held by 3,228 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
Honore de Balzac excelled at creating unforgettable characters, but most of his creations were works of pure fiction. Many critics have asserted that the novel Beatrix is a roman a clef depicting the life of the French memoirist George Sand, as well as the larger cultural shift from an era of genteel aristocracy and class stratification to a more democratic way of living
189 editions published between 1820 and 2020 in 9 languages and held by 3,056 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
The story of Louis Lambert, an isolated, sensitive, boy-genius who is discovered and sent to Collège Vendôme where he bonds with his only friend over discussions of philosophy and mysticism. While his friend is forced to leave school due to illness, Louis continues and graduated in 1815 at the age of eighteen. While living in Paris for three years, and later after returning to his uncle's home in Blois, he writes letters to his friend, continuing their discussions, and describing how his life has continued
579 editions published between 1838 and 2022 in 9 languages and held by 2,934 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
In the sequel to Lost Illusions, Lucien de Rubempre is in love with the courtesan Esther Gobseck, who is being pursued by the financier Nucingen, while Collin, disguised as a Spanish diplomat, is determined to use Lucien as a tool to pillage the upper reaches of Paris society
178 editions published between 1833 and 2019 in 10 languages and held by 2,837 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
Set against the backdrop of the Peninsular War, Balzac's novella "Juana" focuses on a storied family of French courtesans who have achieved legendary status. For many generations, the women have lived outside of the bounds of polite society, eschewing the familial involvement of men and maintaining a matrilineal tradition. But with the birth of a little girl named Juana, everything changes


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- Wormeley, Katharine Prescott Other Translator Editor Author
- Marriage, Ellen Other Translator Author of introduction Author Editor
- Bell, Clara 1834-1927 Other Translator Editor Author
- Stendhal 1783-1842 Other Honoree Author Contributor
- Waring, James Translator
- Castex, Pierre-Georges 1915-1995 Other Author of introduction Annotator Director Publishing director Author Editor Publisher
- Bouteron, Marcel 1877-1962 Other Commentator Contributor Author of introduction Annotator Publishing director Secretary Author Editor Redactor
- Dostoyevsky, Fyodor 1821-1881 Bibliographic antecedent Translator Author
- Ligaran Author
- Catherine de Médicis Queen, consort of Henry II, King of France 1519-1589
Saint-Aubin, Horace de, 1799-1850
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