INTRODUCTION

Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) i&by gênerai consent the greatest novelist of France and in the opinion of many the greatest of the world, a just judgment if scope of vision and depth of insight into human character be preferred to polished diction and aesthetic sensé. Balzac has grown almost steadily in the regard of critics in France, and his place among English readers is attested by the récent and almost simultaneous appearance of four translations of his very extensive works. Studies of his life and of his fiction are numerous and accessible. Among the best may be mentioned Professor Trent's introductions to an English édition of the novels, his article in the Library of the World's Best Literature, and Miss Wormley's Memoirs of Balzac. I hâve myself written of Balzac in some détail in A Century of French Fiction (pages 88-186), and more briefly in Modem French Literature (pages 414-427).

Balzac grouped his fiction under the gênerai title of The Human Comedy, the usual édition of which counts forty-seven volumes and nearly 16,000 pages. There are about two thousand characters, of whom two French admirers, Cerfbeer and Christophe, hâve published a biographical dictionary. He divides his stories into

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