Ce recit en forme de pamphlet drolatique force un peu le trait sur un personnage cense representer l'homme de la monarchie de Juillet. Felix Gaudissart est suractif, il seduit, il est efficace, comme cette societe moderne sur laquelle Balzac ironise souvent, dont il deplore le materialisme frenetique, et qui produit pour produire sans connaitre le but de son agitation. Gaudissart sait tout, est alle partout, connait tout, mais il ne comprend pas tout. Il n'a de talent que pour le commerce et la vente, comme on le voit a ses brillants debuts lorsqu'il sauve du desastre Cesar Birotteau. Balzac...
Ce recit en forme de pamphlet drolatique force un peu le trait sur un personnage cense representer l'homme de la monarchie de Juillet. Felix Gaudissar...
Dinah de La Baudraye (nee Dinah Piedefer), epouse de Jean-Anastase-Polydore Milaud de La Baudraye dans la Muse du departement et poetesse locale consideree comme bas-bleu, qui signe ses ecrits du nom de Jean Diaz, vient de soumettre au poete Raoul Nathan une nouvelle: Le Prince de la boheme. Les protagonistes du texte sont l'ex-danseuse Tullia, (Claudine Chaffaroux), un de ces rats qui se vendent pour survivre a divers protecteurs. C'est son histoire et ses amours qui sont retracees dans la nouvelle de Dinah, au milieu d'un raout comparable a celui qui a lieu dans Autre etude de femme chez...
Dinah de La Baudraye (nee Dinah Piedefer), epouse de Jean-Anastase-Polydore Milaud de La Baudraye dans la Muse du departement et poetesse locale consi...
Francois Birotteau, vicaire de la cathedrale Saint-Gatien de Tours, est victime de la haine secrete de l'abbe Troubert et de sa logeuse, mademoiselle Gamard. Candide et franc, il ne comprendra jamais les intrigues qui l'ont prive d'une vie confortable et de relations amicales et respectueuses dans la ville, ni les raisons de la haine de sa logeuse. La mise en place du cadre de vie de l'abbe, par la description minutieuse de la maison Gamard, temoigne du gout de Balzac pour l'ameublement et les objets decoratifs."
Francois Birotteau, vicaire de la cathedrale Saint-Gatien de Tours, est victime de la haine secrete de l'abbe Troubert et de sa logeuse, mademoiselle ...
Eugene de Rastignac etait devenu l'amant de Delphine de Nucingen, femme du grand banquier Nucingen en 1819 dans Le Pere Goriot. En 1833, date a laquelle commence la Maison il rompt avec Delphine, mais il continue a travailler avec son mari dans des affaires frauduleuses, ou il gagne beaucoup d'argent au point qu'il se trouve bientot en position de pretendre au titre de pair de France. Dans le salon particulier d'un celebre restaurant parisien, un homme surprend la conversation de quatre journalistes echauffes par un bon repas, Andoche Finot, Emile Blondet, Couture et Jean-Jacques Bixiou....
Eugene de Rastignac etait devenu l'amant de Delphine de Nucingen, femme du grand banquier Nucingen en 1819 dans Le Pere Goriot. En 1833, date a laquel...
Passionate and perceptive, the three short novels that make up Balzac's History of the Thirteen are concerned in part with the activities of a rich, powerful, sinister and unscrupulous secret society in nineteenth-century France. While the deeds of 'The Thirteen' remain frequently in the background, however, the individual novels are concerned with exploring various forms of desire. A tragic love story, Ferragus depicts a marriage destroyed by suspicion, revelation and misunderstanding. The Duchess de Langeais explores the anguish that results when a society coquette tries to seduce a heroic...
Passionate and perceptive, the three short novels that make up Balzac's History of the Thirteen are concerned in part with the activities of a rich, p...
One of the greatest French novelists, Balzac was also an accomplished writer of shorter fiction. This volume includes twelve of his finest short stories - many of which feature characters from his epic series of novels the Comedie Humaine. Compelling tales of acute social and psychological insight, they fully demonstrate the mastery of suspense and revelation that were the hallmarks of Balzac's genius. In -The Atheist's Mass, - we learn the true reason for a distinguished atheist surgeon's attendance at religious services; -La Grande Breteche- describes the horrific truth behind the...
One of the greatest French novelists, Balzac was also an accomplished writer of shorter fiction. This volume includes twelve of his finest short stori...
This up-to-date account of the novel's composition, structure, and achievement provides readers with the literary and historical knowledge needed to make sense of the text. Professor Bellos explains how Balzac challenged prevailing nineteenth-century expectations of what novels should be like.
This up-to-date account of the novel's composition, structure, and achievement provides readers with the literary and historical knowledge needed to m...
Colonel Chabert, a Napoleonic War hero supposedly killed in the Battle of Eylau, returns to Paris after a long convalescence to find his wife remarried, and his pension gone. He employs a young, well-known lawyer to at least reclaim his pension. It is a game of wits: first to convince the lawyer that he is who he says he is; secondly to get his wife to admit to his identity and thereby give up some of her wealth. Once the lawyer believes Chabert's story, the wife must be made to part with his pension...
Colonel Chabert, a Napoleonic War hero supposedly killed in the Battle of Eylau, returns to Paris after a long convalescence to find his wife remarrie...
The Wrong Side of Paris, the final novel in Balzac's The Human Comedy, is the compelling story of Godefroid, an abject failure at thirty, who seeks refuge from materialism by moving into a monastery-like lodging house in the shadows of Notre-Dame. Presided over by Madame de La Chanterie, a noblewoman with a tragic past, the house is inhabited by a remarkable band of men--all scarred by the tumultuous aftermath of the French Revolution--who have devoted their lives to performing anonymous acts of charity. Intrigued by the Order of the Brotherhood of Consolation and their...
The Wrong Side of Paris, the final novel in Balzac's The Human Comedy, is the compelling story of Godefroid, an abject failure at thir...
Written for serial publication in 1822 under the pseudonym Horace de Saint-Aubin, this Faustian tale by Balzac has never before been available in English. More than a long-lost curiosity by an important writer, The Centenarian is also a seminal work of early science fiction, crucial to understanding both the development of the genre and the craft of this great author. Beringheld, a 400-year-old "mad scientist," discovered the fluid necessary to human life, but he must extract the vital fluid of others to enlarge his own powers. Balzac intertwines the mythic and the modern in ways that would...
Written for serial publication in 1822 under the pseudonym Horace de Saint-Aubin, this Faustian tale by Balzac has never before been available in Engl...