Honore Balzac: 591 books

EXTRAIT:  Le comte de Fontaine, chef de l’une des plus anciennes familles du Poitou, avait servi la cause des Bourbons avec intelligence et courage pendant la guerre que les Vendéens firent à la république. Après avoir échappé à tous...

EXTRAIT:  Par un soir du mois de novembre 1793, les principaux personnages de Carentan se trouvaient dans le salon de madame de Dey, chez laquelle l’assemblée se tenait tous les jours. Quelques circonstances qui n’eussent point attiré l’attention d’une grande ville,...

EXTRAIT: La marquise de Listomère est une de ces jeunes femmes élevées dans l’esprit de la Restauration. Elle a des principes, elle fait maigre, elle communie, et va très-parée au bal, aux Bouffons, à l’Opéra  ; son directeur lui permet...

Honore de Balzac excelled at creating unforgettable characters, but most of his creations were works of pure fiction. Many critics have asserted that the novel Beatrix is a roman a clef depicting the life of the French memoirist George Sand, as well as the larger cultural shift from an era of genteel aristocracy and class stratification to a more democratic way of living.

Honore De Balzac may only have lived for 51 years but his work lives on through such vital classics as Albert Savarus. Written in 1836 and part of a series of novels known as La Comédie Humaine (The Human Comedy) which parodies and depicts French society in the period of the Restoration and the July Monarchy (18151848).

Set in the aftermath of the French Revolution, this short story from the Scenes of Political Life section of Honore de Balzac's The Human Comedy immerses readers in the terrifying tumult of the period. Brimming with mystery and suspense, this is historical fiction at its very best.

A fantastic novel by French novelist and playwright Honore de Balzac.

Settle in for a titillating tale of illicit passion, romantic entanglement, and murder. Honore de Balzac's novella The Girl With the Golden Eyes highlights the French writer's skillful ability to convey truths about the darker nature of humanity through perfectly wrought details and observations. A must-read...

The novel Eve and David is the third entry in Honore de Balzac's Lost Illusions trilogy, which in turn is part of his larger novel cycle, The Human Comedy. The story focuses on a pair of earnest, good-hearted lovers who struggle to remain unsullied even as the world around them devolves into a hellish demimonde beset by greed, sensationalism, and baseness.

The short story "Facino Cane" has been categorized as both a "Philosophical Study" and a "Scene of Paris Life" in various editions of French writer Honore de Balzac's sprawling series The Human Comedy. The narrator is attending a wedding and takes an interest in one of the musicians performing at the...

EXTRAIT: Au commencement de l’automne de l’année 1826, l’abbé Birotteau, principal personnage de cette histoire, fut surpris par une averse en revenant de la maison où il était allé passer la soirée. Il traversait donc aussi promptement que son...

Predating Edgar Allen Poe's remarkably similar story "The Cask of Amontillado" by more than a decade, Honore de Balzac's chilling tale "La Grande Breteche" centers on a mysterious manor that sits abandoned in a town in central France. When a physician becomes curious about the estate and begins to question locals about it, he gradually unfurls a horrifying secret.

An extract from Honore de Balzac's vast story cycle The Human Comedy, the novel Albert Savarus details the dramatic twists and turns in a budding love affair between Albert, a young lawyer with literary ambitions, and a beautiful but conniving young woman named Rosalie. Though the story unfolds in a manner not unlike a typical romance, the surprise ending will leave readers reeling.

Droll Stories, by Honore de Balzac.