Selected Short Stories

A sound copy with only light wear. Overall a solid copy at a great price! All

A sound copy with only light wear. Overall a solid copy at a great price! All orders guaranteed and ship within 24 hours. Your purchase supports More Than Words, a nonprofit job training program for youth, empowering youth to take charge of their lives by taking charge of a business.

All pages and cover are intact. Possible slightly loose binding, minor

All pages and cover are intact. Possible slightly loose binding, minor highlighting and marginalia, cocked spine or torn dust jacket. Maybe an ex-library copy and not include the accompanying CDs, access codes or other supplemental materials.

0140443258 Meets the good condition guidelines. Has wear. Five star seller-Buy with confidence!

0140443258 Meets the good condition guidelines. Has wear. Five star seller-Buy with confidence!

New York. 1977. Penguin Books. 1st Penguin Classic Paperback Edition. Very

New York. 1977. Penguin Books. 1st Penguin Classic Paperback Edition. Very Good In Wrappers. ISBN: 0140443258. Translated from the French & With An Introduction and Notes by Sylvia Raphael. 271 pages. paperback. The cover shows a detail from 'a Place de la Concorde en 1829' by Canella. FROM THE PUBLISHER-In addition to the longer novels Balzac wrote some fifty stories during his working life. The twelve included here provide examples of the many varied aspects of his art: tragic, melodramatic, sentimental, pathetic, and comic. With the ability to tell a gripping tale Balzac combined a lively imagination, a minute observation, and a keen sense of the irony of the human condition. In addition to offering a fascinating picture of life during one of the most violent and disturbed periods of French history, many of the stories in this volume deal with important episodes in the lives of major characters in the Comedie humaine and thus add to an understanding of the great novels. Honoré de Balzac (20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850) was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon. Due to his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, Balzac is regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature. He is renowned for his multifaceted characters, who are complex, morally ambiguous and fully human. His writing influenced many subsequent novelists such as Marcel Proust, Émile Zola, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Gustave Flaubert, Benito Pérez Galdós, Marie Corelli, Henry James, William Faulkner, Jack Kerouac, and Italo Calvino, and philosophers such as Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx. Many of Balzac's works have been made into or have inspired films, and they are a continuing source of inspiration for writers, filmmakers and critics. An enthusiastic reader and independent thinker as a child, Balzac had trouble adapting to the teaching style of his grammar school. His willful nature caused trouble throughout his life and frustrated his ambitions to succeed in the world of business. When he finished school, Balzac was an apprentice in a law office, but he turned his back on the study of law after wearying of its inhumanity and banal routine. Before and during his career as a writer, he attempted to be a publisher, printer, businessman, critic, and politician; he failed in all of these efforts. La Comédie humaine reflects his real-life difficulties, and includes scenes from his own experience. Balzac suffered from health problems throughout his life, possibly due to his intense writing schedule. His relationship with his family was often strained by financial and personal difficulties, and he ended several friendships over critical reviews. In 1850 he married Ewelina Hanska, his longtime love; he died five months later. inventory #28912.