The Project Gutenberg EBook of Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings, by
Mary F. Sandars

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Title: Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings

Author: Mary F. Sandars

Release Date: January 9, 2006 [EBook #9548]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HONORE DE BALZAC, HIS LIFE ***

Produced by John Bickers and Dagny Wilson

First published 1904.

HONORE DE BALZAC
HIS LIFE AND WRITINGS

BY

MARY F. SANDARS

PREFACE

Books about Balzac would fill a fair-sized library. Criticisms on his
novels abound, and his contemporaries have provided us with several
amusing volumes dealing in a humorous spirit with his eccentricities,
and conveying the impression that the author of "La Cousine Bette" and
"Le Pere Goriot" was nothing more than an amiable buffoon.

Nevertheless, by some strange anomaly, there exists no Life of him
derived from original sources, incorporating the information available
since the appearance of the volume called "Lettres a l'Etrangere."
This book, which is the source of much of our present knowledge of
Balzac, is a collection of letters written by him from 1833 to 1844 to
Madame Hanska, the Polish lady who afterwards became his wife. The
letters are exact copies of the originals, having been made by the
Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul, to whom the autographs belong.

It seems curious that no one should yet have made use of this mine of
biographical detail. In English we have a Memoir by Miss Wormeley,
written at a time when little as known about the great novelist, and a
Life by Mr. Frederick Wedmore in the "Great Writers" Series; but this,
like Miss Wormeley's Memoir, appeared before the "Lettres a
l'Etrangere" were published. Moreover, it is a very small book, and
the space in it devoted to Balzac as a man is further curtailed by
several chapters devoted to criticism of his work. The introduction to
the excellent translation of Balzac's novels undertaken by Mr.
Saintsbury, contains a short account of his life, but this only