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Balzac was one of the principal founders of realism in literature as well as one of France’s most prolific and influential writers. In his lifetime, he tried his hand at many professions including those of legal clerk, publisher, printer, businessman, critic, and politician; in the end he succeeded only as a writer. But it was exactly because of his experiences in these various pursuits that he was able to create so many finely drawn characters from all walks of life, some of them considered to be among the most memorable in all of literature. The Human Comedy Left unfinished at the time of the writer’s death, La Comédie Humaine is a vast literary undertaking composed of some hundred short stories, novellas, and novels set in the shadow 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. Following the authoritative French Pléiade edition in the ordering of the stories, Noumena Press plans to release Balzac’s complete magnum opus in a set of forty-five matching volumes, each one newly annotated, edited, and with the original illustrations from the Furne edition of 1842. Vol. I: At the Sign of the Cat and Racket and Other Works |
Honoré de Balzac
1799-1850
