Balzac’s La Comédie Humaine

The Chouans (1829)

The Physiology of Marriage (1829)

An Episode Under the Terror (1831 according to my copy 1830 elsewhere)

The Vendetta (1830) elsewhere Vendetta

The Ball at Sceaux 1830 La Bal de Sceaux

Gobseck (1830)

At the Sign of the Cat and Racket

A Second Home

Domestic Peace

Study of a Woman

Adieu

Sarrasine

Eugénie Grandet

The Black Sheep 

Cousin Bette

9 Responses to Balzac’s La Comédie Humaine

  1. Have you read that new translation of The Unknown Masterpiece and Gambara? I just checked out a copy. Have to drag myself away from JT…

  2. No I haven’t. I have a complete set of Balzac from the 19thc. Various old copies, some new translations and even more on the Kindle. BUT, since you can never have enough Balzac, I’ll check this out.

  3. Hey Lichanos: How NEW is that translation? It’s by Richard Howard who also translated the Sachs book. Unless there are two Richard Howards….

    • Uh…I don’t quite operate in geologic time, but I guess new is not the word for the NYRB translation by Howard from 2000. Sorry about that. 19th century it’s not!

      • I wanted to make sure I had the right one. I subscribe to the NYRB e-newsletter and I wondered how I missed this, but now I see it was 2000. Wouldn’t want to miss a new Balzac.

  4. From Thompson to Balzac’s Unknown Masterpiece: sort of like slamming on the brakes and doing a 180 real quick! A Balzac novel wouldn’t be quite so much of a jolt – Cousin Bette? – but in his short stories, he lets his romanticism run wild.

    Can’t say I liked it all that much, all that art-talk from the last few centuries make for pretty thin drama, but I could go on endlessly about that… I’m having a lot of trouble focusing on Gambara, and have retreated back into The Grifters.

  5. I’ve been wondering how it will compare to Zola’s The Masterpiece. I think I’m going to take a break after Savage Night as I don’t want to start merging Thompson’s characters together.

  6. Guy, some of the links aren’t working. I tried the ones for Pere Goriot and Cousin Bette and both were dead.

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