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This novel opens in the old town of Guerande which still enclosed by mighty walls and possesses moats still full of water. The houses have not changed and the streets are as they were one hundred years in the past. It is the family seat of the de Guenics. The old society of the town gather here to play cards and gossip, often about the younger generations. The son of the house, Calyste, is going to visit one of the main objects of this gossip and we learn of this person’s p...

„Ursula” novel is one of the pillars of the „Scenes of Provincial Life” section of Honoré de Balzac’s story cycle „The Human Comedy”. Through a series of tragedies and coincidences, a kind and pious teenager named Ursula has been taken in by an octogenarian wealthy doctor, Denis Minoret. Inspired by Ursula’s goodness, Minoret decides to make her his chief heir. This incites the ire of his other relatives, and a ruthless war for Minoret’s estate breaks out. In this book Balz...

„Over The Border: A Romance” written by Robert Barr who was a Scottish-Canadian short story writer and novelist. This book was published in 1903. Robert Barr (16 September 1849 – 21 October 1912) wrote more than 20 novels. Among the more estimable are „The victors” (New York, 1901), about metropolitan politics, and „The mutable many” (New York and London, 1896), which focused on an industrial strike. Both had a distinctively realistic basis, and both were written more objec...

Robert Barr (1849–1912) was a Scottish-Canadian short story writer and novelist, born in Glasgow, Scotland who relocated to London in 1881 where he founded the magazine „The Idler” in 1892 in collaboration with Jerome K Jerome. In 1895 he retired from its co-editorship and became a prolific novelist. His famous detective character Eugéne Valmont, fashioned after Sherlock Holmes, is said to be the inspiration behind Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot. Some of his works include...

Fans of Romeo and Juliet will delight in the novella „Vendetta”, Honoré de Balzac’s unique take on the timeless theme of star-crossed lovers. This short novel is a story of love and revenge, dealing with the vendetta between two families of Corsican origin, set in early 19th century Paris just after the fall of Napoleon. It relates the tragic fate of Ginevra Piombo, the daughter of proud Corsican immigrants, who has the misfortune of falling in love with another Corsican Lu...

„Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan” is a comic tale about a society woman, a Princess and a Duchess, who attempts to recycle her slightly seedy past by pursuing a minor literary figure of great probity and innocence. The Princess de Cadignan, aka the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, has consorted with such notable Balzac rakes as Henri de Marsay, Maxime de Trailles, and Eugene de Rastignac, but is disconcerted to find herself being stalked by an unknown but comely young man. Th...

„Lady Eleanor: Lawbreaker” is a love story pure and simple from a British-Canadian short story writer and novelist Robert Barr, born at Glasgow, Scotland but emigrated with his parents to Upper Canada at age four and was educated in Toronto at Toronto Normal School. Here, the heiress conceals the will so that her cousin, the disinherited son of the house, may come to his own. His first thought is to sell the estate to set Richard Sheridan the dramatist up in management. The...

Written in 1893, „Tekla: A Romance of Love and War” is a novel by Robert Barr. Great fun if you like a bit of chivalry and men in tights. Strongly recommended this book for every teenager who wants to discover the exciting world of reading medieval stories and for their parents! Robert Barr (1849-1912) was a British-Canadian short story writer and novelist, who published the first Holmes parody, „The Adventures of Sherlaw Kombs” in 1892. He relocated to London in 1881 where...

„The Chicago Princess” is a historical novel with a romantic line, written by Robert Barr. Robert Barr (1849-1912) was a British-Canadian short story writer and novelist, who published the first Holmes parody, „The Adventures of Sherlaw Kombs” in 1892. A novel „The Chicago Princess” first published in 1904. After working several years in foreign affairs, and after winning and then losing a fortune, Rupert Tremorne is stranded in Nagasaki, at the end of his wits and in some ...

Forget the erroneous title, the central figure of this particular slice of Balzac’s lifelong gift to literature is a woman of character, Madame Veronique Graslin. Honoré de Balzac (20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850) is considered to be one of the fathers of realism in fiction and has crafted a vivid picture of Europe during the end of the Bourbon Monarchy. The first characters presented are the shopkeeper Sauviat and his family. The daughter, Veronique, is beautiful and charming...

„Cousin Pons” is one of the last and greatest of Balzac’s novels of French urban society: a cynical, pessimistic but never despairing consideration of human nature. The book tells the story of Sylvain Pons, a poor moderately successful musician who is swindled by his wealthy relatives when they learn that his collection of art and antiques is worth a fortune. In contrast to his counterpart Cousin Bette, who seeks revenge against those who have humiliated her, Cousin Pons su...

Depicting the fatal clash between material desires and the liberating power of human passions, Honoré de Balzac’s „Eugénie Grandet” (1833) is one of the earliest and most famous novels in his „Comedie humaine” cycle, which portrays a society consumed by the struggle to amass wealth and achieve power. The Grandet household, oppressed by the exacting miserliness of Grandet himself, is jerked violently out of routine by the sudden arrival of Eugenie’s cousin Charles, recently ...

„The Girl with the Golden Eyes” is the third part of a trilogy. Part one is entitled „Ferragus” and part two is „The Duchesse de Langeais”. The three stories are frequently combined under the title „The Thirteen”. It tells the story of a rich and ruthless young man in nineteenth century Paris caught up in an amorous entanglement with a mysterious beauty. Henri de Marsay, a young dandy who is obsessed with appearances, a physically beautiful but spiritually empty young man w...

Originally published in 1830, here we have perhaps Balzac’s best short work, named simply „Gobseck”. Gobseck is a marvelous sketch of a money-lender and miser in Paris during the early part of the nineteenth century who is a font of psychological insight when it comes to humankind’s greed, vanity and other dark motives. His philosophy of never helping anyone because „adversity is the greatest of all teachers” was well known. He also believed that all the peoples of the worl...

Prior to the twentieth century, philosophy was the driving force behind all literature. Authors used the novel as a means to communicate their ideas on man’s purpose and his place in the universe. With Louis Lambert, however, Balzac takes the idea of the philosophical novel a little too far in giving us this odd, chimerical mashup of philosophical treatise and coming-of-age novel. The novel seems to focus on the life and particularly the thoughts of the genius boy protagoni...

By the French author, who, along with Flaubert, is generally regarded as a founding-father of nineteenth-century realism in European fiction. His large output of works, collectively entitled „The Human Comedy” (La Comedie Humaine), consists of 95 finished works and 48 unfinished works. The novel „A Start in Life” is part of the „Scenes of Private Life” section of Balzac’s masterpiece. In much of Balzac’s work, the aristocracy is portrayed as vain, duplicitous, and greedy. B...

This is the coming of age story of a young sculptor named Sarrasine and the choices he will face on his journey towards his destiny. We follow Sarrasine as he travels from France to Italy to search for his passion and find the love of his life. The story of Sarrasine is intertwined with that of the beautiful La Zambinella, and Italian singer with whom the young sculptor will fall madly, deeply in love with. From that moment, he was no longer the owner of his thoughts. Howev...

Immerse yourself in the inner workings of a quaint French village in this charming novel from Honoré de Balzac, an early master of literary realism. The work was dedicated to Balzac’s brother in law, an engineer in the corps royal des ponts et chaussées, Eugene Midy de la Greneraye Surville. Brimming with finely observed details and Balzac’s trademark insight into human motivations and morality, „An Old Maid”, the first book in „The Jealousies of a Country Town”, follows se...

This is one of the three novelettes that are grouped together as „The History of the Thirteen”, along with „Ferragus: Chief of the Companions of Duty” and „The Girl with the Golden Eyes”. The whole notion is that there is a secret society of wealthy gentlemen in Paris called „The Thirteen” which has powers approaching the supernatural. General Armand de Montriveau, a war hero, is enamored of Duchess Antoinette de Langeais, a coquettish, married noblewoman who invites him to...

„Ferragus” is an 1833 novel by French author Honoré de Balzac and included in the „Scenes de la vie parisienne” section of his novel sequence „La Comédie humaine”. It is part of his trilogy „Histoire des treize”: „Ferragus” is the first part, the second is „La Duchesse de Langeais” and the third is „The Girl with the Golden Eyes”. A captivating story about human emotions and relations, set in the year 1820. Balzac narrates the tale of a man who suspects his wife of infideli...

Emilie de Fontaine is a spoiled and pround brat. She rejects all suitors her father proposes. Emilie has incredibly high standards for the man she will marry, and at the top of her unreasonable list of criteria is that he absolutely must be a peer of France. Leaving Paris for the summer, as all good families do, they go to Sceaux. At the local ball, Emilie falls in love with a charming, beautifully mannered, elegant young man. Is he noble? Will he bestow a title on his wife...

The Tragedy of Coriolan – the tragedy of Shakespeare, based on the ancient biographies of the semi-legendary Roman leader of the times of the Republic of Gnay Marcia Coriolanus. Heroes are alive and you can not even read who said what: everyone’s speech is easily distinguished. The images of the tragedy are complex and multifaceted, the problems raised in the play are deep and serious. Reading and re-reading Shakespeare you always find something new that you missed during t...

„Apache Gold, A Story of the Strange Southwest” is a rip-roaring tale of adventure set on the Arizona frontiers of the American Old West written by Joseph Alexander Altsheler (April 29, 1862 – June 5, 1919). He was an American newspaper reporter, editor and author of popular juvenile historical fiction. An abiding classic of western literature, our hero in this tale is Charles Wayne, a young but strong and sharp lad who seeks adventure in the southwesterly desert frontier o...

„Domestic Peace”, a short story by Honoré de Balzac, was originally published in 1831 under the French title of „La Paix du Ménage” and can be found in Scenes from private life (Scenes de la vie privee) in „La Comedie Humaine”. It takes place in November of 1809 at the height of Napoleon’s empire, a time of great splendor and decadence. Everyone who’s anyone in the Parisian aristocracy is gathered at a grand ball at the home of the Comte de Gondreville. Two guys Martial and...