The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Human Comedy, by Honore de Balzac
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Title: The Human Comedy
Introductions and Appendix
Author: Honore de Balzac
Commentator: George Saintsbury
Release Date: November, 1999 [Etext #1968]
Posting Date: March 8, 2010
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HUMAN COMEDY ***
Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny
THE HUMAN COMEDY
INTRODUCTIONS AND APPENDIX
By Honore De Balzac
Note:
This reposting is dedicated to Dagny, who, 10 years ago,
was part of the "Balzac Team" which produced 113 eBooks
for Project Gutenberg. I cannot locate her present email
address to thank her for the extraordinarily fine work she
did at a time when we had none of the present easy programs
to help locate errors--and to notify her that all her Balzac
files have been rechecked and reposted.
DW
CONTENTS
Honore de Balzac
Introduction and brief biography by George Saintsbury.
Appendix
List of titles in French with English translations and grouped
in the various classifications.
Author's introduction
Balzac's 1842 introduction to The Human Comedy.
HONORE DE BALZAC
_"Sans genie, je suis flambe!"_
Volumes, almost libraries, have been written about Balzac; and perhaps
of very few writers, putting aside the three or four greatest of all, is
it so difficult to select one or a few short phrases which will in any
way denote them, much more sum them up. Yet the five words quoted above,
which come from an early letter to his sister when as yet he had not
"found his way," characterize him, I think, better than at least some
of the volumes I have read about him, and supply, when they are properly
understood, the most valuable of all keys and companions for his
comprehension.
"If I have not genius, it is all up with me!" A very matter-of-fact
person may say: "Why! there is nothing wonderful in this. Everybody
knows what genius is wanted to make a name in literature, and most
people think they have it." But this
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