Pere Goriot - Honore De Balzac

All became part of La Com die Humaine, a panorama of the whole of French society, some of the most important works of this series being Eug nie Grandet (1833) and P re Goriot (1834). This novel marked the true beginning of Balzac's towering project La Com die Humaine, his series of novels and short stories depicting "the whole pell-mell of civilization." In P re Goriot, the great novelist probes the "bourgeois tragedy" of money and power from two different directions. While Goriot is willingly reduced to poverty to support his ambitious daughters, an impoverished young man of integrity becomes money hungry. His early stories were hackwork published under various pseudonyms. The resulting tale is a commentary on wealth and human desire that still rings true in the twenty-first century. "P re Goriot can rightly be regarded as one of the greatest of Balzac's novels," writes Henry Reed of this masterful study of a father who sacrifices everything for his daughters. Peter Brooks is the author of a number of books, including Reading for the Plot, The Melodramatic Imagination, and Henry James Goes to Paris. In addition to P re Goriot, his translations include Eug nie Grandet by Honor de Balzac. Translated and with an Afterword by Henry Reedand with an Introduction by Peter BrooksAbout the Author:Honor de Balzac (1799-1850) worked for three years in a lawyer's office, preparing to practice law, but in 1819, he devoted himself to writing. His poems were published in two volumes, A Map of Verona and Lessons of the War. He was a longtime professor of comparative literature and French at Yale University and University Professor at the University of Virginia. Attracted to one of Goriot's daughters, Rastignac succumbs to the fever of social climbing. In 1829, he published La Dernier Chouan, the first story to bear his name and his first success. Over the next twenty years, Balzac's literary output was prodigious: three or four novels a year, sometimes more. He also wrote plays and the popular Droll Stories (1833). Henry Reed (1914-86) was a noted poet, translator, and writer of radio plays.

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Pere Goriot - Honore De Balzac