Honore de Balzac (1799 - 1850)French novelist Honore de Balzac lived from 1799 to 1850. He is considered among the great masters of the novel. In early childhood he was sent to a grammar school at Tours and later to a boarding school at Vendôme. In 1816 he studied law at the Sorbonne, but after receiving his law license three years latter, he chose to abandon law for literature. Balzac began writing sensational novels to order, publishing them under an assumed named. Balzac’s first success, Les Chouans (1829, first published as Le Dernier Chouan), was followed by La Peau de chagrin (1831). In the next two decades he produced a large of novels and short stories called “La Comédie humaine.” This is considered his greatest work. The chief novels in “La Comédie humaine” are Louis Lambert (1832), Eugénie Grandet (1833), La Recherche de l’absolu (1834), Le Père Goriot (1835), Les Illusions perdues (1837), César Birotteau (1837), La Cousine Bette (1847), and Le Cousin Pons (1847). Just a few months before his death he married the Polish Countess Evelina Hanska. Suggested sites for Honore de Balzac:Encyclopedia article about Honore de Balzac |
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