Fascinated by Monsieur de Balzac ‘s century as much as by the writer himself, I have gathered through the works of The Human Comedy a faithful memory of the mores of 19th-century society.

As a pictorial writer, I was delighted to be drawn into the tableaux of personalities, traditions and customs in his novels. To read Honoré de Balzac is also to be transported into a world rich in history; he had to face terrible political upheavals in his lifetime. Family discussions taught him about the workings of the Convention and the Directoire. He marveled at the Empire, but his temperament was Voltairean, and he was alternately a legitimist and a liberal. Nevertheless, his conservative ideas suggest that Balzac was in some way attached to religion and the monarchy.

Although he painted all strata of society with great accuracy, he was particularly brilliant at studying scenes of private life, both in the provinces and among the Parisian nobility. A tireless scrutinizer of the human soul, he was the first to analyze and describe the intricacies of human consciousness. Nothing about human beings escapes his notice, and he accurately describes the good and bad aspects of human nature. In a world of social and religious taboos, he will dare to denounce the most shameful human tares hidden beneath many costumes of respectability. The world in 1800 was hardly any different from ours: money always buys everything!

Honoré de Balzac’s analytical studies and philosophical tales are infinitely rich in research and knowledge. Honoré consulted philosophers and naturalists. Among other things, he made Lavater’s Physiognomonie his bible for outlining the literary study of all social groups. He often relied on well-founded knowledge, and his entire body of work is avant-garde.

The work you are about to discover is a collector’s item, combining Balzac’s own life in the tumult of history with a study of the author’s works, including the 5 plays he wrote for the theater. Not all were represented. While Honoré de Balzac is best known for his gigantic work of The Human Comedy. He worked as a notary clerk, journalist, printer, type foundryman, proprietor of La Chronique de Paris and La Revue Parisienne, and playwright. Like Prometheus, Balzac is one of the titans!

I hope that the information gathered on this site will delight lovers of history and fine literature. I wish you lots of fun.

Download the complete work studies of The Human Comedy in .docx format