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Honore de Balzac: the Complete Human Comedy
The Human Comedy (French: La Comédie Humaine) is the title of Honoré de Balzac's multi-volume collection of interlinked novels and stories depicting French society in the period of the Restoration (1815-1830) and the July Monarchy (1830–1848).
It consists of 91 finished works (stories, novels or analytical essays) and 46 unfinished works (some of which exist only as titles). It does not include Balzac's five theatrical plays or his collection of humorous tales, the "Contes drolatiques" (1832–37). The title of the series is usually considered an allusion to Dante's Divine Comedy; while Ferdinand Brunetière, the famous French literary critic, suggests that it may stem from poems by Alfred de Musset or Alfred de Vigny. While Balzac sought the comprehensive scope of Dante, his title indicates the worldly, human concerns of a realist novelist. The stories are placed in a variety of settings, with characters reappearing in multiple stories.
Notable works included in the 'Human Comedy':
- The Purse
- Domestic Bliss
- The Imaginary Mistress
- A Daughter Of Eve
- Honorine
- Beatrix
- Gobseck
- A Woman Of Thirty
- Old Goriot (Father Goriot)
- Colonel Chabert
- A Marriage Contract
- Another Study Of Woman
- Ursule Mirouet
- Eugenie Grandet
- The Vicar Of Tours
- The Illustrious Gaudissart
- Cesar Birotteau
- Sarrasine
- Cousin Bette (Cousin Betty)
- The Girl With The Golden Eyes
- The Chouans
- Z. Marcas
...
It consists of 91 finished works (stories, novels or analytical essays) and 46 unfinished works (some of which exist only as titles). It does not include Balzac's five theatrical plays or his collection of humorous tales, the "Contes drolatiques" (1832–37). The title of the series is usually considered an allusion to Dante's Divine Comedy; while Ferdinand Brunetière, the famous French literary critic, suggests that it may stem from poems by Alfred de Musset or Alfred de Vigny. While Balzac sought the comprehensive scope of Dante, his title indicates the worldly, human concerns of a realist novelist. The stories are placed in a variety of settings, with characters reappearing in multiple stories.
Notable works included in the 'Human Comedy':
- The Purse
- Domestic Bliss
- The Imaginary Mistress
- A Daughter Of Eve
- Honorine
- Beatrix
- Gobseck
- A Woman Of Thirty
- Old Goriot (Father Goriot)
- Colonel Chabert
- A Marriage Contract
- Another Study Of Woman
- Ursule Mirouet
- Eugenie Grandet
- The Vicar Of Tours
- The Illustrious Gaudissart
- Cesar Birotteau
- Sarrasine
- Cousin Bette (Cousin Betty)
- The Girl With The Golden Eyes
- The Chouans
- Z. Marcas
...
13755 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1848
719 people are currently reading
694 people want to read
About the author
Honoré de Balzac
9,541 books4,362 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 - 11 of 11 reviews
March 8, 2024
Each work is reviewed elsewhere and the errors her are minimal in my kindle edition, I read all except the last biography, I had enough even though I love Balzac's works.
May 5, 2014
There's a reason these works have endured. By the way they're free on Kindle.
February 8, 2016
one of those crappy walter black editions from the 1920s that has tons of typos, smudged letters and stuck together pages, so probably doesnt correspond with the edition catalogged here. it also has incredibly dense text layout, almost completely lack of footnotes, and no commentary. the rating thus applies to the actual texts rather than the edition, of which im not even sure what translations they are. what we have here is fourteen novellas and one short story from la comedie humaine - eight taken from scenes from private life, four from parisian life, and the other three from various other places. despite the lack of footnotes and commentary the stories flow really well with one another - the opening scathing monologue of the girl with the golden eyes sets the tone quite nicely. no real duds in here although the firm of nucigen and the unconscious mummers were a little dense and certainly the kind of thing that a re-read or two would benefit. highlights are the intense melodrama of the vendetta, and the somewhat ironic tragedies of the commission in lunacy and colonel chabert. probably the most tragic story is a passion in the desert as its a lot easier to feel bad for the innocence of animals compared to scheming parisians. i'd only read old goriot going into this and that was like 10 years ago, but a lot of the characters from that make their way into these stories, and its pretty neat to see major characters in some works being minor characters in others or even mentioned in an off-hand comment in others still. i'd really like to track down a complete edition of the comedy, but it certainly looks like it would be a formidable task
September 29, 2015
Fantastic!
January 3, 2022
What a marvellous collection of his works!
July 1, 2025
COLONEL CHABERT ( Balzac)
A study in matrimonial dilemmas. A filthy, terribly disfigured bum stumbles into lawyer Derville's offices where he is taunted by the boyish clerks and mockingly told to return later..... if he dares. This ruined wreck of a man claims to be the famed Colonel Chabert, holder of the Legion of Honour and hero of the Napoleonic wars, reported dead in battle years ago. Regarded as a raving madman after his recovery of terrible wounds, he'd been held in asylum for years in Germany. The doubtful young lawyer comes to believe his story when evidence is produced – and therein the dilemma. Chabert's ambitious and beautiful “widow” is now fashionably remarried to an up-and-coming younger nobleman Ferraud with whom she has two little children.
If Chabert – now penniless – cannot have his wife back, he at least wants his titles and wealth restored.... but according to his original will, much of the estate has already been distributed. If brought to court, Derville sees long hearings, depositions, scandal, counter-claims, enormous expense. And to which husband does Madame Ferraud now belong? Did she not act in good faith? The courts will be inclined to favor the original marriage, but may decide for the second, as there are two little children now involved. And which will the lady herself prefer – wifely duty to a famed and suffering husband – or fashionable ambition & motherhood?
Complicating matters: Louis XVIII is on his throne now and the regime wants only to forget 1789 and Napoleonic ruin. Derville fears how sympathetic courts will be if buried history is dragged back up from the grave.
How to approach Madame and break the news? wonders Derville. Discreetly and in private? Or in the presence of her new husband? Would not a quiet compromise be in everyone's interest?
Well, one party at last agrees to amicable compromise. The other will rely on guile.
---------------------------------.
QUOTES:
"They have all the poverty without the poetry .... poverty in Paris gains dignity only by horror.
“We must not show our hand but try to see hers, and win the game at one stroke. She must be frightened. She is a woman. Now, what frightens women most?”
“Madness! You will be caught.... Besides, you might miss. That would be unpardonable. A man must not miss his shot when he wants to kill his wife.”
"Ready for anything, she did not yet know what she was going to do; … but at any rate she meant to annihilate him socially.
"The Countess preserved a calm countenance, showing that impenetrable face women can assume when determined to do their worst."
A study in matrimonial dilemmas. A filthy, terribly disfigured bum stumbles into lawyer Derville's offices where he is taunted by the boyish clerks and mockingly told to return later..... if he dares. This ruined wreck of a man claims to be the famed Colonel Chabert, holder of the Legion of Honour and hero of the Napoleonic wars, reported dead in battle years ago. Regarded as a raving madman after his recovery of terrible wounds, he'd been held in asylum for years in Germany. The doubtful young lawyer comes to believe his story when evidence is produced – and therein the dilemma. Chabert's ambitious and beautiful “widow” is now fashionably remarried to an up-and-coming younger nobleman Ferraud with whom she has two little children.
If Chabert – now penniless – cannot have his wife back, he at least wants his titles and wealth restored.... but according to his original will, much of the estate has already been distributed. If brought to court, Derville sees long hearings, depositions, scandal, counter-claims, enormous expense. And to which husband does Madame Ferraud now belong? Did she not act in good faith? The courts will be inclined to favor the original marriage, but may decide for the second, as there are two little children now involved. And which will the lady herself prefer – wifely duty to a famed and suffering husband – or fashionable ambition & motherhood?
Complicating matters: Louis XVIII is on his throne now and the regime wants only to forget 1789 and Napoleonic ruin. Derville fears how sympathetic courts will be if buried history is dragged back up from the grave.
How to approach Madame and break the news? wonders Derville. Discreetly and in private? Or in the presence of her new husband? Would not a quiet compromise be in everyone's interest?
Well, one party at last agrees to amicable compromise. The other will rely on guile.
---------------------------------.
QUOTES:
"They have all the poverty without the poetry .... poverty in Paris gains dignity only by horror.
“We must not show our hand but try to see hers, and win the game at one stroke. She must be frightened. She is a woman. Now, what frightens women most?”
“Madness! You will be caught.... Besides, you might miss. That would be unpardonable. A man must not miss his shot when he wants to kill his wife.”
"Ready for anything, she did not yet know what she was going to do; … but at any rate she meant to annihilate him socially.
"The Countess preserved a calm countenance, showing that impenetrable face women can assume when determined to do their worst."
May 5, 2020
Fabulous
August 15, 2015
I dip into this every now and then ... have not read the whole thing yet. Every story I HAVE read though, has been excellent. Has given me a much richer sense of French culture, architecture, politics.
multiple-works
June 16, 2016Complete works; reviews will be posted under individual titles.
December 10, 2016
"o amor é uma vasta ocupação, e aqueles que nele têm sucesso não deveriam de ter outra".
February 16, 2019
The Charles Dickens of French Lit. Colorful stories that illuminate himan nature and 19th century French culture.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews