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Short Stories of Honore de Balzac
Balzac is considered to be the greatest name in the post-Revolutionary literature of France. His writings display a profound knowledge of the human heart, with an extraordinary range of knowledge.
Don Juan
Christ in Flanders
In the Time of the Terror
Madame de Dey's Last Reception
A Passion in the Desert
Lost by a Laugh
Gold
Doomed to Live
An Accursed House
The Atheist's Mass
A Tragedy by the Sea
Don Juan
Christ in Flanders
In the Time of the Terror
Madame de Dey's Last Reception
A Passion in the Desert
Lost by a Laugh
Gold
Doomed to Live
An Accursed House
The Atheist's Mass
A Tragedy by the Sea
260 pages, Paperback
Published April 1, 2005
1 person is currently reading
57 people want to read
About the author
Honoré de Balzac
9,618 books4,399 followersFrench writer Honoré de Balzac (born Honoré Balzac), a founder of the realist school of fiction, portrayed the panorama of society in a body of works, known collectively as
La comédie humaine
.
Honoré de Balzac authored 19th-century novels and plays. After the fall of Napoléon in 1815, his magnum opus, a sequence of almost a hundred novels and plays, entitled, presents life in the years.
Due to keen observation of fine detail and unfiltered representation, European literature regards Balzac. He features renowned multifaceted, even complex, morally ambiguous, full lesser characters. Character well imbues inanimate objects; the city of Paris, a backdrop, takes on many qualities. He influenced many famous authors, including the novelists Marcel Proust, Émile Zola, Charles John Huffam Dickens, Gustave Flaubert, Henry James, and Jack Kerouac as well as important philosophers, such as Friedrich Engels. Many works of Balzac, made into films, continue to inspire.
An enthusiastic reader and independent thinker as a child, Balzac adapted with trouble to the teaching style of his grammar. His willful nature caused trouble throughout his life and frustrated his ambitions to succeed in the world of business. Balzac finished, and people then apprenticed him as a legal clerk, but after wearying of banal routine, he turned his back on law. He attempted a publisher, printer, businessman, critic, and politician before and during his career. He failed in these efforts From his own experience, he reflects life difficulties and includes scenes.
Possibly due to his intense schedule and from health problems, Balzac suffered throughout his life. Financial and personal drama often strained his relationship with his family, and he lost more than one friend over critical reviews. In 1850, he married Ewelina Hańska, his longtime paramour; five months later, he passed away.
Honoré de Balzac authored 19th-century novels and plays. After the fall of Napoléon in 1815, his magnum opus, a sequence of almost a hundred novels and plays, entitled, presents life in the years.
Due to keen observation of fine detail and unfiltered representation, European literature regards Balzac. He features renowned multifaceted, even complex, morally ambiguous, full lesser characters. Character well imbues inanimate objects; the city of Paris, a backdrop, takes on many qualities. He influenced many famous authors, including the novelists Marcel Proust, Émile Zola, Charles John Huffam Dickens, Gustave Flaubert, Henry James, and Jack Kerouac as well as important philosophers, such as Friedrich Engels. Many works of Balzac, made into films, continue to inspire.
An enthusiastic reader and independent thinker as a child, Balzac adapted with trouble to the teaching style of his grammar. His willful nature caused trouble throughout his life and frustrated his ambitions to succeed in the world of business. Balzac finished, and people then apprenticed him as a legal clerk, but after wearying of banal routine, he turned his back on law. He attempted a publisher, printer, businessman, critic, and politician before and during his career. He failed in these efforts From his own experience, he reflects life difficulties and includes scenes.
Possibly due to his intense schedule and from health problems, Balzac suffered throughout his life. Financial and personal drama often strained his relationship with his family, and he lost more than one friend over critical reviews. In 1850, he married Ewelina Hańska, his longtime paramour; five months later, he passed away.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 2, 2024
Immediately sought out a larger selection of tales from La Comédie humaine where most of these stories are from. Such a religious sense of horror (we see priests and nuns barricading themselves during the Reign of terror and a mass dechristianization sweeping across France, a husband walling up a closet after forcing his wife to swear on a crucifix she is not hiding a lover in there, and a mysterious elixir that is said to be immortal passed through members of nobility leading to body horror I was not expecting right off the rip!!) And I’m hooked!
March 7, 2017
3 1/2 stars
March 25, 2019
An interesting book with a limited number of short stories. Balzac is one of those writers I've always heard about and yet never got around to reading because nothing that has been said about him seemed to make it imperative to get him onto my reading list, and the little glimpses of him i got here and there throughout my school days just never interested me all that much. However, this set of short stories came by me in interesting ways--I bought it years and years ago when Hilles library shut down (senior year of college...how long ago that was!), and it was always one of those books whose appearance, rather than content, interested me. It was one of those small, cloth-bound hardbacks issued by Everyman's Library around the 1920s, and I got similar editions of Katherine Mansfield's short stories and also some early 20th century classics from the same library sale, and have only begun to make my way through those, 10 years after the fact...I love these early editions, the way they're printed and the way they feel in the hands.
The story qualities are uneven, some plots are predictable (or have become predictable in the years since the author first wrote them; they may have been quite fresh at the time). Some of the stories appear to be quite macabre and have a great gothic horror sense to them, especially An Accursed House and Don Juan.
A nice pleasant easy read to cozy up to before bed time.
The story qualities are uneven, some plots are predictable (or have become predictable in the years since the author first wrote them; they may have been quite fresh at the time). Some of the stories appear to be quite macabre and have a great gothic horror sense to them, especially An Accursed House and Don Juan.
A nice pleasant easy read to cozy up to before bed time.
October 20, 2014
Simply wonderful stories within stories, within the story of La Comédie humaine...
January 1, 2019
read all stories but 'The Atheist's Mass', tried to get through but couldn't.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews