A new translation of one of Balzac's finest novels, this tale of misguided passion centers on a young aristocrat who falls into a cloaked, coded entanglement with an older countess--a relationship that is upended when he becomes involved with a new lover.

A story of impossible and unsatisfied desire, Balzac's The Lily in the Valley opens with a scene of desire unleashed. Félix de Vandenesse, the shy teenage scion of an aristocratic family, is at a ball, when his eyes are drawn to a beautiful woman in fashionable undress: before he knows what he is doing, he throws himself upon her, covering her bare back with kisses. In shock, she pushes him away. He leaves the party in shame.

The woman at the party is Henriette de Mortsauf, married to a much older count. Time passes, and Félix is reintroduced to her. Nothing is said of what transpired, though nothing is forgotten, and a courtship begins whose premise is that Félix will worship Henriette without displaying the least sign of desire. He waits on her. He plays endless board games with her impossible husband. He develops a language of flowers and presents her with elaborately coded bouquets. Félix and Henriette are in a swoon, until he departs for Paris to pursue a career in politics and takes up with the uninhibited Arabella Dudley. Meanwhile Henriette is on her deathbed. She writes him, Do you remember your kisses? They have dominated my life and furrowed my soul. . . . They are my death!

The Lily in the Valley is a terrible fairy tale of two people lost in a game of love--or is it? Peter Bush's new translation brings out the psychological dynamics of one of Balzac's masterpieces.

This fine example of the French realist novel contrasts the social progress of an impoverished but ambitious aristocrat with the tale of a father, whose obsessive love for his daughters leads to his personal and financial ruin.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

An NYRB Classics Original

Characters from every corner of society and all walks of life--lords and ladies, businessmen and military men, poor clerks, unforgiving moneylenders, aspiring politicians, artists, actresses, swindlers, misers, parasites, sexual adventurers, crackpots, and more--move through the pages of The Human Comedy, Balzac's multivolume magnum opus, an interlinked chronicle of modernity in all its splendor and squalor. The Human Comedy includes the great roomy novels that have exercised such a sway over Balzac's many literary inheritors, from Dostoyevsky and Henry James to Marcel Proust; it also contains an array of short fictions in which Balzac is at his most concentrated and forceful. Nine of these, all newly translated, appear in this volume, and together they provide an unequaled overview of a great writer's obsessions and art. Here are The Duchesse de Langeais, A Passion in the Desert, and Sarrasine; tales of madness, illicit passion, ill-gotten gains, and crime. What unifies them, Peter Brooks points out in his introduction, is an incomparable storyteller's fascination with the power of storytelling, while throughout we also detect what Proust so admired: the mysterious circulation of blood and desire.

'Who is going to marry Eugénie Grandet?'

This is the question that fills the minds of the inhabitants of Saumur, the setting for Eugénie Grandet (1833), one of the earliest and most famous novels in Balzac's Comédie humaine. The Grandet household, oppressed by the exacting miserliness of Grandet himself, is jerked violently out of routine by the sudden arrival of Eugénie's cousin Charles, recently orphaned and penniless. Eugénie's emotional awakening, stimulated by her love for her cousin, brings her into direct conflict with her father, whose cunning and financial success are matched against her determination to rebel.

Eugénie's moving story is set against the backdrop of provincial oppression, the vicissitudes of the wine trade, and the workings of the financial system in the aftermath of the French Revolution. It is both a poignant portrayal of private life and a vigorous fictional document of its age.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Bette is a wronged soul; and when her passion does break, it is, as Balzac says, sublime and terrifying, wrote V. S. Pritchett. A late masterpiece in Balzac's La Com die Humaine, Cousin Bette is the story of a Vosges peasant who rebels against her scornful upper-class relatives, skillfully turning their selfish obsessions against them. The novel exemplifies what Henry James described as Balzac's huge, all-compassing, all-desiring, all-devouring love of reality.

Balzac was] the master unequalled in the art of painting humanity as it exists in modern society, wrote George Sand. He searched and dared everything.

Written between 1837 and 1843, Lost Illusions reveals, perhaps better than any other of Balzac's ninety-two novels, the nature and scope of his genius. The story of Lucien Chardon, a young poet from Angoul me who tries desperately to make a name for himself in Paris, is a brilliantly realistic and boldly satirical portrait of provincial manners and aristocratic life. Handsome and ambitious but na ve, Lucien is patronized by the beau monde as represented by Madame de Bargeton and her cousin, the formidable Marquise d'Espard, only to be duped by them. Denied the social rank he thought would be his, Lucien discards his poetic aspirations and turns to hack journalism; his descent into Parisian low life ultimately leads to his own death.

Balzac was both a greedy child and an indefatigable observer of a greedy age, at once a fantastic and a genius, yet possessing a simple core of common sense, noted V. S. Pritchett, one of his several biographers. Another, Andr Maurois, concluded: Balzac was by turns a saint, a criminal, an honest judge, a corrupt judge, a minister, a fob, a harlot, a duchess, and always a genius.

This Modern Library edition presents the translation by Kathleen Raine.

Cousin Bette (1846) is considered to be Balzac's last great novel, and a key work in his Human Comedy. Set in the Paris of the 1830s and 1840s, it is a complex tale of the devastating effect of violent jealousy and sexual passion.

Against a meticulously detailed backdrop of a post-Napoleonic France struggling with massive industrial and economic change, Balzac's characters span many classes of society, from impoverished workers and wealthy courtesans to successful businessmen and official dignitaries.

The tragic outcome of the novel is relieved by occasional flashes of ironic comedy and the emergence of a younger generation which has come to terms with the new political and econimic climate.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Considered a founder of the realistic school of fiction, prolific French novelist Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) wrote in meticulous detail, depicting ordinary and undistinguished lives in tales that nevertheless abounded in melodramatic plots and violent passions.
This convenient dual-language volume includes six of Balzac's most highly regarded short stories: An Episode During the Terror, a deftly told tale contrasting material poverty with spiritual riches; A Passion in the Desert, inspired by Balzac's interest in the Near East and his fascination with Napoleon; The Revolutionary Conscript, a critique of provincial life; The Forsaken Woman, an intriguing study of female psychology and a how-to seduction manual; The Unknown Masterpiece, which focuses on the conflict between an artist's commitment to his work and his relationship with the woman who loves him; and Facino Cane, a tale of a destitute blind man's dreams of restoring his former wealth and power.
Stanley Appelbaum has provided excellent, line-for-line English translations of the text, as well as an informative introduction and notes related to each story. This superb selection of tales by one of the world's great writers of fiction is sure to delight students and devotees of French language and literature.

Sexual attraction, artistic insight, and the often ironic relationship between them are the dominant themes in the three short works by Balzac collected in this volume.

In Sarrasine, an impetuous young sculptor falls in love with a diva of the Roman stage, but rapture turns to rage when he discovers the reality behind the seductiveness of the singer's voice. The ageing artist in The Unknown Masterpiece, obsessed with his creation of the perfect image of an ideal woman, tries to hide it from the jealous young student who is desperate for a glimpse of it. And in The Girl with the Golden Eyes, the hero is a dandy whose attractiveness for the mysterious Paquita has an unexpected origin. These enigmatic and disturbing forays into the margins of madness, sexuality, and creativity show Balzac spinning fantastic tales as profound as any of his longer fictions.

This volume is the only edition to bring these three great Balzac novellas together in one book, and it is the first paperback collection to include Sarrasine. Patrick Coleman's Introduction builds on the latest scholarship to help the reader appreciate the connections between notions of gender and the aesthetic explorations of nineteenth-century French romanticism and realism. The edition also includes thorough notes which explain all important cultural and political references.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

A new annotated translation of the keystone of Balzac's Com die Humaine--a sweeping narrative of corrupted idealism in a cynical urban milieu

Lost Illusions is an essential text within Balzac's Com die Humaine, his sprawling, interconnected fictional portrait of French society in the 1820s and 1830s comprising nearly one hundred novels and short stories. This novel, published in three parts between 1837 and 1843, tells the story of Lucien de Rubempr , a talented young poet who leaves behind a scandalous provincial life for the shallow, corrupt, and cynical vortex of modernity that was nineteenth-century Paris--where his artistic idealism slowly dissipates until he eventually decides to return home.

Balzac poured many of his thematic preoccupations and narrative elaborations into Lost Illusions, from the contrast between life in the provinces and the all-consuming world of Paris to the idealism of poets, the commodification of art, the crushing burden of poverty and debt, and the triumphant cynicism of hack journalists and social climbers. The novel teems with characters, incidents, and settings, though perhaps none so vivid as its panoramic and despairing view of Paris as the nexus of modernity's cultural, social, and moral infection. For Balzac, no institution better illustrates the new reality than Parisian journalism: amoral, hypocritical, brazen, dishonest, and murderous, he writes.

In this new translation, Raymond N. MacKenzie brilliantly captures the tone of Balzac's incomparable prose--a style that is alternatingly impassioned, overheated, angry, moving, tender, wistful, digressive, chatty, intrusive, and hectoring. His informative annotations guide the modern reader through the labyrinth of Balzac's allusions.

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 is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

In Lost Illusions, Honoré de Balzac presents an intricate tapestry of 19th-century French society through the poignant story of Lucien Chardon, a young poet who grapples with his ambitions amidst the harsh realities of Parisian life. This novel, a crucial part of Balzac's larger work, La Comédie Humaine, employs a realistic literary style characterized by meticulous detail and psychological depth, reflecting the struggles between idealism and the gritty pragmatism of the age. The narrative navigates themes of aspiration, disillusionment, and the socio-economic forces that shape human ambition, making it a profound exploration of the costs of artistic and moral integrity in a commercially driven world. Balzac, a towering figure in the development of literary realism, drew upon his own experiences of navigating Paris's literary and social hierarchies to craft this powerful narrative. His keen observations of society, shaped by his early challenges as a writer and his profound understanding of human nature, inform his portrayal of Lucien's tumultuous journey as he interacts with both the affluent and the destitute, revealing the complexities of ambition in a rapidly changing society. Lost Illusions is an essential read for those interested in the intersection of literature and social criticism. It invites readers to reflect on their own aspirations and the societal structures that influence them. This timeless classic not only captivates with its rich characterizations and vivid descriptions but also serves as a cautionary tale about the cost of forsaking one's ideals in pursuit of success.

The first new translation of Balzac's 1847 novel Splendeurs et mis res des courtisanes in half a century, fully annotated and with an extensive introduction

In Lost Souls, Honor de Balzac's brilliant evocation of nineteenth-century Paris, we enter a world of glittering wealth and grinding poverty, teeming with strivers, poseurs, and pleasure seekers along with those who struggle merely to survive. Between the heights of Parisian society and the criminal world lurking underneath, fate is about to catch up with Lucien de Rubempr , last seen in Lost Illusions, as his literary aspirations, his love for the courtesan Esther van Gobseck, and his scheme to marry the wealthy Clotilde become entangled in the cunning and ultimately disastrous ambitions of the Abb Herrera, a villain for the ages.

An extraordinary volume in Balzac's vast Human Comedy (in which he endeavored to capture all of society), Lost Souls appears here in its first new English translation in half a century. Keenly attuned to the acerbic charm and subtleties of Balzac's prose, this edition also includes an introduction presenting thorough biographical, literary, and historical context, as well as extensive notes throughout the text--an invaluable resource for today's readers as they navigate Balzac's copious allusions to classical and contemporaneous politics and literature.

Sarrasine (1831) is a novella by French author Honoré de Balzac. Written as part of his La Comédie humaine sequence, Sarrasine is one of Balzac's earliest works published without a pseudonym and helped to establish his reputation as a serious writer and distinguished member of Parisian high society. Noted for its controversial exploration of homosexuality and castration, Balzac's novella would become the subject of Roland Barthe's groundbreaking work of literary criticism, S/Z (1970).

Composed as a frame narrative, Sarrasine begins during a ball at the mansion of the wealthy Monsieur de Lanty. The unnamed narrator, from a window overlooking the garden, listens to the conversations of partygoers and watches as his guest, Beatrix Rochefide, is approached by a mysterious older man. The next night, the narrator tells Beatrix a story involving the man, a respected member of de Lanty's circle. He begins with the life of Ernest-Jean Sarrasine, a successful young sculptor who, on a trip to Rome, fell in love with an opera star named Zambinella. Convinced she represents the ideal feminine form, he rejects Zambinella's misgivings and vague excuses, becoming increasingly obsessed with the beautiful singer. Devising a plan to kidnap Zambinella during a party at the French embassy, Sarrasine discovers the truth: the singer is a castrato, a classical operatic performer who was selected and castrated before puberty. Sarrasine, a powerful novella, explores themes of idealization and obsession while illuminating the conflation of sex and gender.

With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Honoré de Balzac's Sarrasine is a classic of French literature reimagined for modern readers.

Monsieur Goriot is one of a disparate group of lodgers at Mademe Vauquer's dingy Parisian boarding house. At first his wealth inspires respect, but as his circumstances are mysteriously reduced he becomes shunned by those around him, and soon his only remaining visitors are his two beautifully dressed daughters. Goriot's fate is intertwined with two other fellow boarders: the young social climber Eugene Rastignac, who sees a way to gain the acceptance and wealth he craves, and the enigmatic figure of Vautrin, who is hiding darker secrets than anyone. Weaving a compelling and panoramic story of love, money, self-sacrifice, corruption, greed and ambition, Old Man Goriot is Balzac's acknowledged masterpiece. A key novel in his Comédie Humaine series, it is a vividly realized portrait of bourgeois Parisian society in the years following the French Revolution.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The idea of The Human Comedy . . . originated in a comparison between Humanity and Animality.

A painter's greatest masterpiece is inspired by a young girl of angelic beauty, but their resulting marriage only serves to reveal the deep divide between their true natures . . . A haughty young demoiselle, the last child to marry from an old noble family, is raised to be all too discerning in her choice of a future husband, with tragic consequences . . . A lifelong correspondence between two young women illustrates their different ideas about love and marriage―one valuing romance and excitement, the other marital duty―but as they begin to live out their philosophies of love and life, one thrives as a wife and mother while the other is slowly consumed by jealousy . . .

The works in this volume―At the Sign of The Cat & Racket, The Ball at Sceaux, and Letters of Two Brides―are preceded by an introduction in which the author sets forth the history of the project and explains his principles of composition

La Comédie Humaine, left unfinished at the time of Balzac's death, is a vast literary work comprising nearly one hundred short stories, novellas, and novels set in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars during the Bourbon Restoration and the July Monarchy. Throughout, Balzac utilizes nineteenth-century French society to examine humanity and the human experience with all its attendant virtues, vices, and peculiarities.

Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) was one of France's most prolific and influential writers, and is generally considered to be one of the first and greatest of the literary realists. In his lifetime, he tried and failed at a number of professions, including that of legal clerk, printer, publisher, and as a businessman who engaged in a number of abortive ventures. These experiences, as well as numerous affairs with admiring ladies―many of them from the nobility―and an unsuccessful run for public office, provided him with a wealth of material for his writing, in which he was able to create some of the most memorable characters in French literature.

P re Goriot can rightly be regarded as one of the greatest of Balzac's novels, writes Henry Reed of this masterful study of a father who sacrifices everything for his daughters. This novel marked the true beginning of Balzac's towering project La Com die Humaine, his series of novels and short stories depicting the whole pell-mell of civilization. In P re Goriot, the great novelist probes the bourgeois tragedy of money and power from two different directions. While Goriot is willingly reduced to poverty to support his ambitious daughters, an impoverished young man of integrity becomes money hungry. Attracted to one of Goriot's daughters, Rastignac succumbs to the fever of social climbing. The resulting tale is a commentary on wealth and human desire that still rings true in the twenty-first century.

Translated and with an Afterword by Henry Reed
and with an Introduction by Peter Brooks

...the duty of a woman, who wishes for domestic peace, compels her to bury sufferings so keen as hers at the bottom of her heart, and without a complaint.

Day after day, a poor but beautiful young seamstress toils away by her window, waiting for the mysterious Monsieur Noir: a gentleman she hopes will be the answer to all her prayers . . . A ball given at the height of Napoléon's power is the scene of a wager between army comrades to see who will be the first to dance with an unknown lady in blue . . . Who is Madame Firmiani? Is she a beautiful society lady? A dangerous woman, a siren? Or is she perhaps nothing more than an innocent and charming hostess who gives delightful tea parties? The rich uncle of a young man who has come under her sway is determined to find out . . .

A Second Home, Domestic Peace, Madame Firmiani, A Study of Woman, The Imaginary Mistress, and A Daughter of Eve are the six works of The Human Comedy presented in this volume, all of which share adultery and suspicion as their primary themes.

La Comédie Humaine, left unfinished at the time of Balzac's death, is a vast literary work comprising nearly one hundred short stories, novellas, and novels set in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars during the Bourbon Restoration and the July Monarchy. Throughout, Balzac utilizes nineteenth century French society to examine humanity and the human experience with all its attendant virtues, vices, and peculiarities.

Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) was one of France's most prolific and influential writers, and is generally considered to be one of the first and greatest of the literary realists. In his lifetime, he tried and failed at a number of professions, including that of legal clerk, printer, publisher, and as a businessman who engaged in a number of abortive ventures. These experiences, as well as numerous affairs with admiring ladies―many of them from the nobility―and an unsuccessful run for public office, provided him with a wealth of material for his writing, in which he was able to create some of the most memorable characters in French literature.

Cousin Bette (1846) is a novel by French author Honoré de Balzac. Part of Balzac's La Comédie humaine sequence, the novel is recognized as being the author's last fully-realized work, and features several characters who appear elsewhere throughout his legendary series. It has inspired several film and television adaptations, as well as earned comparisons to Shakespeare's Othello and Tolstoy's War and Peace.

The novel focuses on the life and exploits of Bette Fischer, a 42-year-old woman whose bitterness at remaining unmarried-despite several proposals by men she deemed unworthy-drives her to ruin the reputations and lives of her extended family. After rescuing the young sculptor Wenceslas Steinbock from suicide, Bette develops a complex affection for the man. When he falls in love with Hortense, the daughter of Bette's cousin Adeline, she hatches a plan to gain revenge for this perceived personal slight. She recruits the young and beautiful Valérie Marneffe-an unhappily married woman-to seduce Adeline's husband, Baron Hector Hulot, whose uncontrolled desires and extensive vanity both test his family's loyalty and stretch their finances to the furthest possible limit. Cousin Bette is an intense psychological drama and character study that burns with the fire of Balzac's critique of French society. While exposing the depths of human immorality-particularly where money is made the center of personal relationships-Balzac manages to remind us that what makes us human is not what drives us apart, but the lengths to which we will go to cultivate love despite our basest impulses.

To read Cousin Bette is to observe the hopes, flaws, and desires of the people of nineteenth century France, but to ultimately judge ourselves. This final masterpiece of Honoré de Balzac is a testament to the skill and dedication of one of history's finest literary minds.

This edition of Honoré de Balzac's Cousin Bette is a classic of French literature reimagined for modern readers.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

Eugénie Grandet, un roman classique d'Honoré de Balzac, plonge au coeur de la vie provinciale française du XIXe siècle, explorant les thèmes de la richesse, de l'avidité et des dynamiques de pouvoir au sein d'une famille. Située dans la petite ville de Saumur, l'histoire suit la vie du personnage principal, Eugénie, la fille du riche mais avare Félix Grandet. Alors qu'Eugénie grandit sous le contrôle oppressif de son père, sa vie prend un tournant inattendu avec l'arrivée de son cousin charmant mais démuni, Charles. Leur relation naissante et les conflits qui en découlent révèlent les contrastes frappants entre l'amour et l'avidité, la simplicité et l'opulence.

L'aperçu perspicace de Balzac sur la nature humaine et sa description vivante des luttes et des désirs des personnages font de Eugénie Grandet un conte intemporel de croissance personnelle, de contraintes sociétales et de quête du véritable bonheur.