Bøker av Honore de Balzac

Une ténébreuse affaire: scènes de la vie politique. T. 1 / par M. de Balzac...Date de l'édition originale: 1842Le présent ouvrage s'inscrit dans une politique de conservation patrimoniale des ouvrages de la littérature Française mise en place avec la BNF.HACHETTE LIVRE et la BNF proposent ainsi un catalogue de titres indisponibles, la BNF ayant numérisé ces oeuvres et HACHETTE LIVRE les imprimant à la demande.Certains de ces ouvrages reflètent des courants de pensée caractéristiques de leur époque, mais qui seraient aujourd'hui jugés condamnables.Ils n'en appartiennent pas moins à l'histoire des idées en France et sont susceptibles de présenter un intérêt scientifique ou historique.Le sens de notre démarche éditoriale consiste ainsi à permettre l'accès à ces oeuvres sans pour autant que nous en cautionnions en aucune façon le contenu.Pour plus d'informations, rendez-vous sur www.hachettebnf.fr

Une ténébreuse affaire: scènes de la vie politique. T. 2 / par M. de Balzac...Date de l'édition originale: 1842Le présent ouvrage s'inscrit dans une politique de conservation patrimoniale des ouvrages de la littérature Française mise en place avec la BNF.HACHETTE LIVRE et la BNF proposent ainsi un catalogue de titres indisponibles, la BNF ayant numérisé ces oeuvres et HACHETTE LIVRE les imprimant à la demande.Certains de ces ouvrages reflètent des courants de pensée caractéristiques de leur époque, mais qui seraient aujourd'hui jugés condamnables.Ils n'en appartiennent pas moins à l'histoire des idées en France et sont susceptibles de présenter un intérêt scientifique ou historique.Le sens de notre démarche éditoriale consiste ainsi à permettre l'accès à ces oeuvres sans pour autant que nous en cautionnions en aucune façon le contenu.Pour plus d'informations, rendez-vous sur www.hachettebnf.fr

Romans et contes philosophiques, par M. de Balzac. 2e édition...Date de l'édition originale: 1833Le présent ouvrage s'inscrit dans une politique de conservation patrimoniale des ouvrages de la littérature Française mise en place avec la BNF.HACHETTE LIVRE et la BNF proposent ainsi un catalogue de titres indisponibles, la BNF ayant numérisé ces oeuvres et HACHETTE LIVRE les imprimant à la demande.Certains de ces ouvrages reflètent des courants de pensée caractéristiques de leur époque, mais qui seraient aujourd'hui jugés condamnables.Ils n'en appartiennent pas moins à l'histoire des idées en France et sont susceptibles de présenter un intérêt scientifique ou historique.Le sens de notre démarche éditoriale consiste ainsi à permettre l'accès à ces oeuvres sans pour autant que nous en cautionnions en aucune façon le contenu.Pour plus d'informations, rendez-vous sur www.hachettebnf.fr

Monsieur Goriot is one of a disparate group of lodgers at Mademe Vauquer's dingy Parisian boarding house. At first his wealth inspires respect, but as his circumstances are mysteriously reduced he becomes shunned by those around him, and soon his only remaining visitors are his two beautifully dressed daughters. Goriot's fate is intertwined with two other fellow boarders: the young social climber Eugene Rastignac, who sees a way to gain the acceptance and wealth he craves, and the enigmatic figure of Vautrin, who is hiding darker secrets than anyone. Weaving a compelling and panoramic story of love, money, self-sacrifice, corruption, greed and ambition, Old Man Goriot is Balzac's acknowledged masterpiece. A key novel in his Comedie Humaine series, it is a vividly realized portrait of bourgeois Parisian society in the years following the French Revolution.

Passionate and perceptive, the three short novels that make up Balzac's History of the Thirteen are concerned in part with the activities of a rich, powerful, sinister and unscrupulous secret society in nineteenth-century France. While the deeds of 'The Thirteen' remain frequently in the background, however, the individual novels are concerned with exploring various forms of desire. A tragic love story, Ferragus depicts a marriage destroyed by suspicion, revelation and misunderstanding. The Duchess de Langeais explores the anguish that results when a society coquette tries to seduce a heroic ex-soldier, while The Girl with the Golden Eyes offers a frank consideration of desire and sexuality. Together, these works provide a firm and fascinating foundation for Balzac's many later portrayals of Parisian life in his great novel-cycle The Human Comedy.

Mild, harmless and ugly to behold, the impoverished Pons is an ageing musician whose brief fame has fallen to nothing. Living a placid Parisian life as a bachelor in a shared apartment with his friend Schmucke, he maintains only two passions: a devotion to fine dining in the company of wealthy but disdainful relatives, and a dedication to the collection of antiques. When these relatives become aware of the true value of his art collection, however, their sneering contempt for the parasitic Pons rapidly falls away as they struggle to obtain a piece of the weakening man's inheritance. Taking its place in the Human Comedy as a companion to Cousin Bette, the darkly humorous Cousin Pons is among of the last and greatest of Balzac's novels concerning French urban society: a cynical, pessimistic but never despairing consideration of human nature.

One of the greatest French novelists, Balzac was also an accomplished writer of shorter fiction. This volume includes twelve of his finest short stories - many of which feature characters from his epic series of novels the Comedie Humaine. Compelling tales of acute social and psychological insight, they fully demonstrate the mastery of suspense and revelation that were the hallmarks of Balzac's genius. In The Atheist's Mass, we learn the true reason for a distinguished atheist surgeon's attendance at religious services; La Grande Breteche describes the horrific truth behind the locked doors of a decaying country mansion, while The Red Inn relates a brutal tale of murder and betrayal. A fascinating counterpoint to the renowned novels, all the stories collected here stand by themselves as mesmerizing works by one of the finest writers of nineteenth-century France.

Handsome would-be poet Lucien Chardon is poor and naive, but highly ambitious. Failing to make his name in his dull provincial hometown, he is taken up by a patroness, the captivating married woman Madame de Bargeton, and prepares to forge his way in the glamorous beau monde of Paris. But Lucien has entered a world far more dangerous than he realized, as Madame de Bargeton's reputation becomes compromised and the fickle, venomous denizens of the courts and salons conspire to keep him out of their ranks. Lucien eventually learns that, wherever he goes, talent counts for nothing in comparison to money, intrigue and unscrupulousness. Lost Illusions is one of the greatest novels in the rich procession of the Comedie humaine, Balzac's panoramic social and moral history of his times.

Philippe and Joseph Bridau are two extremely different brothers. The elder, Philippe, is a superficially heroic soldier and adored by their mother Agathe. He is nonetheless a bitter figure, secretly gambling away her savings after a brief but glorious career in Napoleon's army. His younger brother Joseph, meanwhile, is fundamentally virtuous - but their mother is blinded to his kindness by her disapproval of his life as an artist. Foolish and prejudiced, Agathe lives on unaware that she is being cynically manipulated by her own favourite child, but will she ever discover which of her sons is truly the black sheep of the family? A dazzling depiction of the power of money and the cruelty of life in nineteenth-century France, The Black Sheep compellingly explores is a compelling exploration of the nature of deceit.

Poor, plain spinster Bette is compelled to survive on the condescending patronage of her socially superior relatives in Paris: her beautiful, saintly cousin Adeline, the philandering Baron Hulot and their daughter Hortense. Already deeply resentful of their wealth, when Bette learns that the man she is in love with plans to marry Hortense, she becomes consumed by the desire to exact her revenge and dedicates herself to the destruction of the Hulot family, plotting their ruin with patient, silent malice. Cousin Bette is a gripping tale of violent jealousy, sexual passion and treachery, and a brilliant portrayal of the grasping, bourgeois society of 1840s Paris. The culmination of the Comedie humaine, Balzac's epic chronicle of his times, it is one of his greatest triumphs as a novelist.

Balzac is concerned with the choice between ruthless self-gratification and asceticism, dissipation and restraint, in a novel that is powerful in its symbolism and realistic depiction of decadence.

In 1842, eight years before his death, Balzac described Ursule Mirouet as the masterpiece of all the studies of human society that he had written; he regarded the book as 'a remarkable tour de force'.An essentially simple tale about the struggle and triumph of innocence reviled, Ursule Mirouet is characterized by that wealth of penetrating observation so readily associated with Balzac's work. The twin themes of redemption and rebirth are illuminated by a consistently passionate rejection of both philosophic and practical materialism in favour of love. In this case love is aided by supernatural intervention, which itself effectively illustrates Balzac's life-long fascination with the occult.

Physiology of Marriage in 3 volumes is a treatise by Honoré de Balzac, published under the title Physiology of Marriage or Meditations on eclectic philosophy, on marital happiness and unhappiness, published by a young bachelor. An essay, a meditation and a narrative at the same time, the text oscillates between the study of manners and the analytical treatise and it is part of a genre in developing, that of physiology. The text is divided into several "sections" or meditations. The first several meditations expose the state of marriage in France in the wealthy and idle upper classes, then propose a series of reforms to improve the marital status of women and thus prevent them from cheating on their husbands.

History of the Thirteen is a trilogy written by Honoré de Balzac: Ferragus is the first part, the second is La Duchesse de Langeais and the third is The Girl with the Golden Eyes. The story is set around the year 1820. Auguste de Maulincour, a young cavalry officer, walking in a Parisian district of ill repute, sees from afar a young married woman, Clemence, with whom he is secretly in love. In the days that follow his arrival to Paris, Auguste uncovers the secrets of powerful and mysterious people and escapes several assassination attempts.

The theme of celibacy was important to Balzac, who gave the name The Celibates to a sub-section of his famous La Comédie humaine. It consists of Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours and The Black Sheep (The Two Brothers). "Pierrette" tells the story of a sweet little orphan girl, Pierrette Lorrain. She gets adopted by her two older cousins, unmarried brother and sister shopkeepers, who become her guardian because they suspect that she has some inheritance coming. Cousins mistreat Pierrette, make her work as a servant and she becomes miserable. Only one who loves and cares for her is her childhood companion Brigaut. "The Vicar of Tours" is the tale of an old other-worldly, gentle, introspective vicar named Birotteau and his silent feud with his younger and ambition driven colleague, Troubert. Both of them are priests at Tours, having separate lodgings in the house of Sophie Gamard. When Birotteau leaves for several days, upon return he finds Troubert installed in his apartments, in full possession of his furniture and his library, whilst he himself has been moved into inferior rooms. Birotteau tries to regain his position, but their personal drama gets increasingly interwoven with the politics of their small city and becomes public. "The Black Sheep (The Two Brothers)" tells the story of the Bridau family, trying to regain their lost inheritance after a series of mishaps. Brothers Phillip and Joseph Bridau lose their father early. Philippe, who is the eldest and his mother''s favourite, becomes a soldier in Napoleon''s armies, and Joseph becomes an artist. After leaving army Philippe becomes a heavy drinker and gambler, while Joseph is a dedicated artist, and the more loyal son, but his mother does not understand his artistic vocation. They get into financial problems which lead to more troubles.

Eugénie Grandet is set in the town of Saumur. Eugénie''s father Felix is a former cooper who has become wealthy through both business ventures and inheritance. However, he is very stingy, and he lives with his family in a run-down old house which he is too miserly to repair. His banker des Grassins wants Eugénie to marry his son Adolphe, and his lawyer Cruchot wants Eugénie to marry his nephew President Cruchot des Bonfons, both parties eyeing the inheritance from Felix. The two families constantly visit the Grandets to get Felix''s favour, and Felix in turn plays them off against each other for his own advantage. On Eugénie''s birthday, in 1819, Felix''s nephew Charles Grandet arrives from Paris unexpectedly, after his father goes bankrupt. Charles is a spoiled and indolent young man who is having an affair with an older woman. Felix considers him to be a burden and plans to send him off overseas. However, Eugénie falls in love with Charles and stir things up.

The Lily of the Valley is a tale about love which parodies and depicts French society in the period of the Bourbon Restoration. It concerns the affection - emotionally vibrant but never consummated - between Félix de Vandenesse and Henriette de Mortsauf.