Honoré de Balzac

Eugène de Rastignac är en ung student från landet, vars önskan är att ta sig in i Paris finare kretsar. Han har inga pengar och inga kontakter, utom sin kusin Madame de Beauséant. Rastignac är inkvarterad på änkan Vauquers pensionat i Paris Latinkvarter, där han bor granne med »Pappa Goriot«, en olycklig äldre man som övergivits av sina döttrar och som alla gör narr av. Vautrin, en förrymd straffånge, Marsay, en ärelysten politiker, och Rubempré, en begåvad författare, styrs även de av olika maktbegär. Det är av den mystiske Vautrin som Rastignac får erbjudandet som kan ge honom precis den genväg till rikedom han behöver - men det inbegriper i så fall en annan mans död. Honoré de Balzacs Pappa Goriot är portalverket för realismen och en av den franska litteraturens mest klassiska romaner. Här i översättning av Gunilla Nordlund. Denna utgåva med nyskrivet förord av Carin Franzén. HONORÉ DE BALZAC [1799-1850] var en fransk författare, allmänt betraktad som den mest inflytelserike realisten inom romankonsten. Han kallade sina samlade romaner för Den mänskliga komedin [La Comédie humaine, 1829 1848], och av dessa brukar Pappa Goriot [Le Père Goriot, 1835] anses vara hans viktigaste enskilda verk. Balzac hade stor betydelse för författare som Flaubert, Zola, Proust, Dickens och Dostojevskij, men även för politiska tänkare som Marx och Engels.

Rare edition with unique illustrations and elegant classic cream paper. 'Pere Goriot' is the tragic story of a father whose obsessive love for his two daughters leads to his financial and personal ruin. Interwoven with this theme is that of the impoverished young aristocrat, Rastignac, come to Paris from the provinces to make his fortune, who befriends Goriot and becomes involved with the daughters. The story is set against the background of a whole society driven by social ambition and lust for money.' Includes unique illustrations

Eug nie Grandet is set in the town of Saumur. Eug nie's father Felix is a former cooper who has become wealthy through both business ventures and inheritance (having inherited the estates of his mother-in-law, grandfather-in-law, and grandmother all in one year). However, he is very miserly, and he, his wife, daughter, and their servant Nanon live in a run-down old house which he is too miserly to repair. His banker des Grassins wants Eug nie to marry his son Adolphe, and his lawyer Cruchot wants Eug nie 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 Eug nie's birthday, in 1819, Felix's nephew Charles Grandet arrives from Paris unexpectedly at their home having been sent there by his father Guillaume. Charles does not realise that his father, having gone bankrupt, is planning to take his own life. Guillaume reveals this to his brother Felix in a confidential letter which Charles has carried.

Honor de Balzac, n Honor Balzac Tours le 20 mai 1799 (1er prairial an VII du calendrier r publicain), et mort Paris le 18 ao t 1850 ( 51 ans), est un crivain fran ais. Romancier, dramaturge, critique litt raire, critique d'art, essayiste, journaliste et imprimeur, il a laiss l'une des plus imposantes oeuvres romanesques de la litt rature fran aise, avec 96 romans et nouvelles parus de 1829 1850, r unis sous le titre La Com die humaine, auxquels s'ajoutent quelque vingt-cinq oeuvres bauch es et huit romans de jeunesse. Il est un des ma tres du roman fran ais, dont il a abord plusieurs genres: le roman historique et politique, avec Les Chouans, le roman philosophique avec Le Chef-d'oeuvre inconnu, le roman fantastique avec La Peau de chagrin ou encore le roman po tique avec Le Lys dans la vall e. Mais ses romans r alistes et psychologiques les plus c l bres, tels Le P re Goriot ou Eug nie Grandet, lui ont valu une qualification r ductrice d' auteur r aliste, qui ignore son aspect visionnaire et la puissance de son imagination cr atrice.

Honor de Balzac, n Honor Balzac Tours le 20 mai 1799 (1er prairial an VII du calendrier r publicain), et mort Paris le 18 ao t 1850 ( 51 ans), est un crivain fran ais. Romancier, dramaturge, critique litt raire, critique d'art, essayiste, journaliste et imprimeur, il a laiss l'une des plus imposantes oeuvres romanesques de la litt rature fran aise, avec 96 romans et nouvelles parus de 1829 1850, r unis sous le titre La Com die humaine, auxquels s'ajoutent quelque vingt-cinq oeuvres bauch es et huit romans de jeunesse. Il est un des ma tres du roman fran ais, dont il a abord plusieurs genres: le roman historique et politique, avec Les Chouans, le roman philosophique avec Le Chef-d'oeuvre inconnu, le roman fantastique avec La Peau de chagrin ou encore le roman po tique avec Le Lys dans la vall e. Mais ses romans r alistes et psychologiques les plus c l bres, tels Le P re Goriot ou Eug nie Grandet, lui ont valu une qualification r ductrice d' auteur r aliste, qui ignore son aspect visionnaire et la puissance de son imagination cr atrice.

Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac and translated by Ellen Marriage. Le Pere Goriot is an 1835 novel by French novelist and playwright Honore de Balzac (1799-1850), included in the Scenes de la vie privee section of his novel sequence La Comedie humaine. Set in Paris in 1819, it follows the intertwined lives of three characters: the elderly doting Goriot; a mysterious criminal-in-hiding named Vautrin; and a naive law student named Eug ne de Rastignac. Le P re Goriot begins in June 1819, following Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, after the House of Bourbon had been restored to the throne of France. Tension was mounting between the aristocracy, which had returned with King Louis XVIII, and the bourgeoisie produced by the Industrial Revolution. During this era, France saw a tightening of social structures, with a lower class steeped in overwhelming poverty. By one estimate, almost three-quarters of Parisians did not make the 500-600 francs a year required for a minimal standard of living. At the same time, this upheaval made possible a social mobility unthinkable during the Ancien Regime of previous centuries. Individuals willing to adapt themselves to the rules of this new society could sometimes ascend into its upper echelons from modest backgrounds, much to the distaste of the established wealthy class.

At the Sign of the Cat and Racket By Honor de Balzac Nineteenth-century French novelist, one of the creators of Realism in literature. His Human Comedy (La Com die humaine), spanning more than 90 novels and short stories, is a broad, often satirical panorama of French society, particularly the petite bourgeoisie, in the years after the fall of Napol on Bonaparte. We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.

The Abb Fran ois Birotteau and the Abb Hyacinthe Troubert, both of whom are priests at Tours, have separate lodgings in the house belonging to the crabby spinster Sophie Gamard in that city. Birotteau is an other-worldly, gentle, introspective type; Troubert, who is ten years younger than his fellow boarder, is very much of the world: he is a careerist devoured by ambition. Birotteau prides himself on his furniture and fine library, inherited from his friend and predecessor as parish priest of Saint-Gatien de Tours. Without reading all its clauses, or at least without remembering them, he signs a document handed to him by Mlle Gamard, forfeiting his entitlement to his lodgings and making over their contents to her in the event of his vacating his premises for any considerable period. He leaves them for a fortnight's stay in the country, where he is served with a possession order by his landlady's lawyer. On returning home 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 abandons any prospect of a lawsuit to regain his property, as his friends in the provincial aristocracy of Tours gradually withdraw their backing. In return for giving up his rooms he had expected to be appointed to the vacant canonry of the cathedral. Instead, he is demoted to a much poorer parish two or three miles out of Tours. Deprived of his library and furniture, he leaves Mlle Gamard's, thinking that this will indirectly bring him, through Troubert, the canonry which never comes. Troubert, on the other hand, is first appointed Vicar-General of the diocese of Tours, then Bishop of Troyes, scarcely deigning to look in Birotteau's direction as he speeds past his colleague's dilapidated presbytery on his way to his diocese.