Seamy Side of History: The Comedy of Human Life Volume XXXII

Honore de Balzac was born in 1799. His family moved to Paris in 1814 and in 1816 he entered the Sorbonne to study law. However, he decided to pursue his dream of writing rather than embarking upon a legal career. His early novels, written under a pseudonym, were unsuccessful, but, despite the opposition of his family, he decided to continue writing and his persistence paid off in 1829, when, with the publication of La Dernier Chouan, Balzac finally achieved recognition. In the following years he produced a number of works which are considered to be classics of French literature, including La peau de chagrin (1931), Eugenie Grandet (1933) and Les illusions perdues (Vol. I, 1937). In 1850 Balzac married Eveline Hanska, a rich Polish lady with whom he had been corresponding for 15 years, but he died in the same year.