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the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

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Listings for Author:  

Honore de Balzac

  

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Honore de Balzac : [novels]

'In 1917 ... [John Buchan] was treated for a duodenal ulcer. Recuperating after the operation, he read through a dozen of the Waverley Novels, the Valois and D'Artagnan cycles of Dumas, then Victor Hugo's "Notre Dame" and the immense "Les Miserables" ... ending up with half a dozen of Balzac ...'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: John Buchan      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : unknown

'To say the truth, much as I like reading them & specially Balzac and Sand, & little as I am given to overstrictness in my tastes, I do believe that the commonplace criticism is correct. I do think they are as a rule prurient & indecent & that they treat love affairs a good deal too much from the point of view of the whore and the whoremonger. They are very clever and very artistic; but I don?t think delicate either in the sense of art or morals? The books are put together with great skill to produce a given effect; but the effect is apt to border on the nasty & they are too anxious to keep everything in due harmony to give proper contrasts & variety of real life.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : 

The parents of playwright Arnold Wesker were both immigrants, tailor's machinists, Communists and culturally Jewish atheists. Wesker admitted he was "a very bad student", but his parents provided an envionment of "constant ideological discussion at home, argument and disputation all the time... it was the common currency of day-to-day living that ideas were discussed around the table, and it was taken for granted that there were books in the house and that we would read". The books mostly had a leftward slant (Tolstoy, Gorky, Jack London, Sinclair Lewis) but Wesker soon reached out to Balzac, Maupassant and a broader range of literature'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Wesker      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : The Human Comedy

'Ewan McColl remembered his father, a Communist ironfounder, as someone who was always giving him secondhand books. He "belonged to the generation who believed that books were tools that could open a lock which would free people..." At age eight McColl received the works of Darwin. By fifteen he had read Gogol, Dostoevsky and the entire Human Comedy: "They were a refuge from the horrors of the life around us... Unemployment in the 1930s was unbelievable, you really felt you'd never escape... So books for me were a kind of fantasy life... For me to go at the age of fourteen, to drop into the library and discover a book like Kant's Critique of Pure Reason or The Mistaken Subtlety of the Four-Sided Figure... the titles alone produced a kind of happiness in me... When I discovered Gogol in that abominable translation of Constance Garnett with those light blue bindings... I can remember the marvellous sensation of sitting in the library and opening the volume and going into that world of Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin in The Overcoat or in The Nose, or The Madman's Diary. I thought I'd never read anything so marvellous, and through books I was living in many worlds simultaneously. I was living in St Petersburg and in Paris with Balzac... And I knew all the characters, Lucien de Rubempre and Rastignac as though they were my own friends".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Ewan McColl      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : Eugenie Grandet

'James Hanley's workmates laughed when he taught himself French by reading the Mercure de France...Working the night shift at a railway station, Hanley withdrew into the work of Moliere, Hauptmann, Calderon, Sudermann, Ibsen, Lie and Strindberg until he grew quite cozy in his literary shell. His parents were appalled that he had no friends. But I've hundreds of friends he protested. "Bazarov and Rudin and Liza and Sancho Panza and Eugenie Grandet". His father countered with Squeers, Nickleby, Snodgrass and Little Nell: "And they're a healthy lot I might say, whereas all your friends have either got consumption, or are always in the dumps".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: James Hanley      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : unknown

Noted by Leon Edel in "Brief Chronology" of Henry James: "1860: Returns to Newport ... Reads Balzac and Merimee."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : The Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau

'Finished Cesar Birotteau aloud.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot (pseud)      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : Un Roman d'Amour

Henry James to Katherine Prescott Wormeley, 8 February 1900, thanking her for sending him a proof copy of her preface to her translation [of Balzac's Letters], and accompanying MS notes: 'I deeply appreciate the admirable and generous labour that prepared for me the ms. notes to Balzac's Letters and that accompanied the Preface to your translation. [...] I have read with care every word of your preface and notes -- as I had already read the "Roman d'Amour", and bought and read much of the "Lettres a l'Etrangere".'

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : Lettres a l'Etrangere

Henry James to Katherine Prescott Wormeley, 8 February 1900, thanking her for sending him a proof copy of her preface to her translation [of Balzac's Letters], and accompanying MS notes: 'I deeply appreciate the admirable and generous labour that prepared for me the ms. notes to Balzac's Letters and that accompanied the Preface to your translation. [...] I have read with care every word of your preface and notes -- as I had already read the "Roman d'Amour", and bought and read much of the "Lettres a l'Etrangere".'

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : Le Pere Goriot

'We have just finished reading aloud "Pere Goriot" - a hateful book... I have been reading lately and have nearly finished Comte's "Catechism". We have also read aloud "Tom Brown's School Days" with much disappointment. It is an unpleasant, unveracious book'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot (pseud) and G.H. Lewes     Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : Pere Goriot

'Absorbed as always in books, Willie read seriously in both French and German literature. His favourites in French were the "Maximes" of La Rochefoucauld, "La Princesse de Cleves" (which inspired his play "Caesar's Wife"), the tragedies of Racine, the novels of Voltaire, Stendhal's "Le Rouge et le Noir" and "La Chartreuse de Parme", Balzac's "Pere Goriot", Flaubert's "Madame Bovary", the works of Anatole France, the exotic tales of Pierre Loti and the well-crafted stories of Maupassant'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Somerset Maugham      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : La Peau de Chagrin

'Tuesday, 30th March, Club ? Annual meeting. All officers re-elected except Will Evans who stood down. The Players are taking up all his time. Bal. Lear takes his place. I look forward to a record year. We have adopted the course on the ?English Historical Novel? for our programme and intend to vary this on alternate weeks with single lectures, debates etc ? Read -- ?La Peau de Chagrin? etc, (Balzac)'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : Contes Drolatiques

'... et lisais les Contes Drolatiqe de nostre feu Maistre de Balzac ...' [and I was reading the amusing stories of our master Balzac]

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : Beatrix ou les Amours Forces

Robert Browning to Euprhasia Fanny Haworth, ?25 April 1839: 'You read Balzac's "Scenes" etc -- he is publishing one, "Beatrix", in the feuilleton of the "Siecle", day by day -- I receive it from Paris two days old and usually post it off to a friend of mine, as soon as skimmed. But the four or five first chapters were so delightful that I hate myself for not having sent them to Barham [i.e. Barham Lodge, Haworth's home at Elstree]'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Honore de Balzac : "Scenes"

Robert Browning to Euprhasia Fanny Haworth, ?25 April 1839: 'You read Balzac's "Scenes" etc -- he is publishing one, "Beatrix", in the feuilleton of the "Siecle", day by day -- I receive it from Paris two days old and usually post it off to a friend of mine, as soon as skimmed. But the four or five first chapters were so delightful that I hate myself for not having sent them to Barham [i.e. Barham Lodge, Haworth's home at Elstree]'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Euphrasia Fanny Haworth      Print: Unknown

  

Honore de Balzac : Le Pere Goriot

Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 17 December 1842: 'I sent Pere Goriot [...] because it is my belief that I never mentioned to you the name of Balzac, & that he [italics]is[end italics], nevertheless, the most powerful writer of the French day next to Victor Hugo & George Sand! [...] Pere Goriot is a very painful book -- but full of moody power, dashed with blood & mud. It appears to me the most powerful work of its writer, I have read -- & also the most open to tenderness.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : Le Lys dans la Vallee (including Preface)

Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 3 September 1844: 'I read the preface to "Le Lis" & was delighted by it -- but I admire the romance far more than you seem to do, and as a love-romance, a nouvelle "nouvelle Heloise," think it quite exquisite.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : La Vieille Fille

Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 16 September 1844: 'The first book of Balzac's I ever read, disgusted me so, that I vowed to read no more of him, -- & it was by a mere accident that he met me again & overcame me. That first book was his "Veille [sic] fille," which I still think a prodigy of noisomeness.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : La Torpille

Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 20 November 1844: 'I read "La Torpille" -- but I cannot give you any information, such as you ask for [...] As to Casimir Delavigne, I dislike his poetry so much that I dont think I [italics]can[end italics] try to read any more of it.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : Une tenebreuse affaire

Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 4 December 1844: 'The only work of Eugene Sue which I have read among those you ask about, is "Le Salamandre" [...] The only remarkable thing is the preface, in which [...] he says that to represent good people as successful in this world and rogues as unsuccessful would take away the chief argument for a future life. Now I really do hold that virtue, although not always prosperous, is yet upon the whole far happier than vice [...] I am quite sure that to represent systematically vice as fortunate, and goodness as wretched, tends to make selfish people vicious; and it is really wicked in Balzac to give one the pain he does in this way. In "Une Tenebreuse Affaire," for instance, I was so provoked with him for making Napoleon kill Michu and forgive those dolts of gentlemen, that I could have flung the book at his (Balzac's) head, if luckily that wonderful head had been within reach.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : Le dernier Chouan

Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 28 December 1844: 'I have just finished the "Chouans." Of a certain power, without any doubt, but very heavy in many parts, & exceedingly painful in all [goes on to comment further on this text] [...] nobody in the world could read it a second time [...] 'Also I am reading David Sechard [...] Balzac has bewitched me [...] His wonderful greatness in making the ideality, real, -- & the reality, ideal, I take to be unequalled among writers. The first volume I have not finished yet [goes on to comment further on text] [...] I delight in the book, as far as I have read! -- It is worth twenty "Chouans" to my particular taste at least.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : David Sechard, volume 1

Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 28 December 1844: 'I have just finished the "Chouans". Of a certain power, without any doubt, but very heavy in many parts, & exceedingly painful in all [goes on to comment further on this text] [...] nobody in the world could read it a second time [...] 'Also I am reading David Sechard [...] Balzac has bewitched me [...] His wonderful greatness in making the ideality, real, -- & the reality, ideal, I take to be unequalled among writers. The first volume I have not finished yet [goes on to comment further on text] [...] I delight in the book, as far as I have read! -- It is worth twenty "Chouans" to my particular taste at least.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : novels

Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Mary Russell Mitford, 8 February 1847: 'Robert is a warm admirer of Balzac & has read most of his books'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : 

Virginia Woolf to Vita Sackville-West, 8 January 1929: 'I've been reading Balzac, and Tolstoy. Practically every scene in Anna Karenina is branded on me, though I've not read it for 15 years.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : unknown

Sunday 4 April 1937: 'Reading Balzac with great pleasure. Novel reading power is coming back.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : unknown

Thursday 15 April 1937: 'Reading Balzac: reading A. Birrell's memoirs'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : unknown

Friday 31 May 1940: 'Began Balzac, Vautrin.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : Modeste Mignon

Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 20-21 January 1845: 'I put down "Modeste Mignon" to take up your letter. I read my French abomination at breakfast & dinner & tea time, .. so as to forget myself & be delighted to find that I have eaten a little more than usual in my trance (deeper than mesmeric) & happy state of physical unconsciousness [...] And your first words [in letter] [...] are still of Mignon, Mignon. It is a decided case of flint to flint -- & of electricity by coincidence. 'Well -- and I am delighted with the book just as you are [...] because charmed beyond the point of pleasure produced by mere artistic power in the writer. The truth is [...] that if I were to write my own autobiography, or rather, (much rather), if Balzac were to write it for me, he could not veritably have made it different from what he has written of Modeste. The ideal life of my youth was just [italics]that[end italics], .. line for line [goes on to comment further on text] [...] And that "satiete par la pensee."! -- [italics]There[end italics], lies the test of the morbidity -- for it is morbid -- it is dangerous! & worse romances than poor Modests's is likely to be (I have only read a third of the book) might come of it [comments further on own and Mitford's responses to text]'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : Modeste Mignon

Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 20-21 January 1845: 'I put down "Modeste Mignon" to take up your letter. I read my French abomination at breakfast & dinner & tea time, .. so as to forget myself & be delighted to find that I have eaten a little more than usual in my trance (deeper than mesmeric) & happy state of physical unconsciousness [...] And your first words [in letter] [...] are still of Mignon, Mignon. It is a decided case of flint to flint -- & of electricity by coincidence. 'Well -- and I am delighted with the book just as you are [...] because charmed beyond the point of pleasure produced by mere artistic power in the writer. The truth is [...] that if I were to write my own autobiography, or rather, (much rather), if Balzac were to write it for me, he could not veritably have made it different from what he has written of Modeste. The ideal life of my youth was just [italics]that[end italics], .. line for line [goes on to comment further on text] [...] And that "satiete par la pensee."! -- [italics]There[end italics], lies the test of the morbidity -- for it is morbid -- it is dangerous! & worse romances than poor Modests's is likely to be (I have only read a third of the book) might come of it [comments further on own and Mitford's responses to text]'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Russell Mitford      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : Le Pere Goriot

Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 15 February 1845: 'I am not sorry you fell over "La veille Fille" [sic] at last -- & the "Physiologie" besides [...] remember that the "Fille" which is as disgusting a book as you represent it, was my "first fruits" of Balzac. I made my acquaintance with him in that iniquitous book, -- that beastly book -- for, as women, we cannot speak of it with too cogent an abhorrence. Is there any wonder that I made a vow deeply never to read a book by the writer of it any more. I did vow it. And it was a mere mistake of those librarians who are always making mistakes (but I forgive a thousand for the dear love of that one) which sent me "Le Pere Goriot" [...] I bore with him wonderfully; -- & began to sympathise so immorally besides, (as Mr Kenyon says of me) with the artistic power of the book, that I was tempted to throw my plummet down again into the depths of the artist's mind [...] I am struck just as you are, by this wonderful faculty of lifting up so high & clear above the social pollutions, which it is his delight to dabble in, images & creations most stainless & lovely. I do not say (or think) that such a faculty renders him less dangerous as a writer, -- but it is undeniably wonderful as a faculty, & proves him a poet .. minus, the sense of music.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : La vieille fille

Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 15 February 1845: 'I am not sorry you fell over "La veille Fille" [sic] at last -- & the "Physiologie" besides [...] remember that the "Fille" which is as disgusting a book as you represent it, was my "first fruits" of Balzac. I made my acquaintance with him in that iniquitous book, -- that beastly book -- for, as women, we cannot speak of it with too cogent an abhorrence. Is there any wonder that I made a vow deeply never to read a book by the writer of it any more. I did vow it. And it was a mere mistake of those librarians who are always making mistakes (but I forgive a thousand for the dear love of that one) which sent me "Le Pere Goriot" [...] I bore with him wonderfully; -- & began to sympathise so immorally besides, (as Mr Kenyon says of me) with the artistic power of the book, that I was tempted to throw my plummet down again into the depths of the artist's mind [...] I am struck just as you are, by this wonderful faculty of lifting up so high & clear above the social pollutions, which it is his delight to dabble in, images & creations most stainless & lovely. I do not say (or think) that such a faculty renders him less dangerous as a writer, -- but it is undeniably wonderful as a faculty, & proves him a poet .. minus, the sense of music.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : La Femme superieur

Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 5 March 1845: 'I am in the midst of "La Femme superieure." [sic] The truth of this work & the subtlety & deepness of the [italics]life[end italics] in it .. for I will not call it portraiture, .. are wonderful -- but certainly it justifies the attribute of heaviness & slowness we talked of the other day [goes on to remark, as apparently Mitford has also done, upon importance attached by Balzac to details of costume].'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : Esther, ou les Amours d'un vieux banquier

Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 2 May 1845: 'I have found [...] the continuation of David Sichard [novel by Balzac] [...] It is "Esther" in two volumes, & to all appearance full of life, & interest, & most atrocious wickedness, .. to judge from the first two chapters'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : Les Paysans

Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 27 October 1845: 'Balzac's "Paysans" in its one volume, (for [italics]I[end italics] have only seen that one volume) is another proof of the pressure of the times towards sympathies with the people [...] he is Balzac still in "Les Paysans" -- but story there is none, & so no interest -- & no unity, as far as that first volume indicates: & I found it rather hard reading, despite the human character, & the scenic effects. As to "Le Juif" I have done with him, and am not sorry to have done. The last volumes fall off step by step.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Barrett      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : Les Petits Menages d'une Femme verteuse

Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 6 January 1846: 'Any more news of Balzac? "Les petits maneges" I have read & thought excellent -- but it is a continuation of that odious book .. "Les amours forces" -- "Beatrix," remember.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Barrett      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Honore de Balzac : Le Cousin Pons

Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Anna Brownell Jameson, 2 April 1850: 'I have read Shirley lately: it is not equal to Jane Eyre in spontaneousness & earnestness: I found it heavy, I confess, though in [...] the compositional savoir faire, there is an advance. Robert has exhumed some French books, just now, from a little circulating li[brary] which we had not tried -- and we have just been making ourselves uncomfortable over Balzac's "Cousin Pons". But what a wonderful writer he is! Who could have taken such a subject, out of the lowest mud of humaity, & glorified & consecrated it?'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning     Print: Book

  

Honore De Balzac : Le Pere Goriot

Leonard Woolf to Lytton Strachey, 1 September 1901: 'London in August! [...] I like it because I choose it by refusing to fly London with the rest of the world [...] I like wandering through the deserted streets tawdry with painter's ladders & half starved cats & soiled fluttering tags of newspapers [...] It fascinates me by its bare brutality of ugliness, & produces the aesthetic titillation of a slum. During that season too I batten upon Balzac & his hold remains on me for weeks afterwards so that I am rereading Le Pere Goriot out on the cliffs & rocks here.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Leonard Woolf      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : Le Pere Goriot

Leonard Woolf to Lytton Strachey, 8 April 1902: 'I was glad to hear you had really read it [Le Pere Goriot] & I agree with you -- in the main -- about it. Of course personally I never or try never to compare it with Lear because though it challenges comparison all through on the face of it, I don't really think it is fair to do so.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Lytton Strachey      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : Illusions perdues

'La Silence de la Mer by "Vercors" (Schlumberger?) was given me by Raymond Mortimer yesterday and read without much admiration though with plenty of sympathy: published secretly under the Nazis in France. Read also too slow a story by Giono of the coming of Pan: it quickens at the end where human beings and animals dance together, with regrettable results [...] Read too in Illusions Perdues [...] and in Gide's Journal [...] Gide aroused my envy by reading, reading, but if I kept a journal I too should appear to have read, read a lot.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : Le Pere Goriot

'On this journey [to the Western Pyrenees] he took Balzac's novels with him, especially delighting in Le pere Goriot and Eugenie Grandet.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : Eugenie Grandet

'On this journey [to the Western Pyrenees] he took Balzac's novels with him, especially delighting in Le pere Goriot and Eugenie Grandet.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Tennyson      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : Lost Illusions

'Wilde's love of French culture was intensified and perhaps even prompted by his reading. Three novels, which were written at the beginning of the nineteenth century by two acknowledged masters of imaginative realism, impressed him particularly - Balzac's "Lost Illusions" and "A Harlot High and Low" (whose hero is Lucien de Rubempre), and Stendhal's "Scarlet and Black", which featured Julien Sorel. Wilde would nominate the pair as the "two favourite characters" of his boyhood.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Oscar Wilde      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : A Harlot High and Low

'Wilde's love of French culture was intensified and perhaps even prompted by his reading. Three novels, which were written at the beginning of the nineteenth century by two acknowledged masters of imaginative realism, impressed him particularly - Balzac's "Lost Illusions" and "A Harlot High and Low" (whose hero is Lucien de Rubempre), and Stendhal's "Scarlet and Black", which featured Julien Sorel. Wilde would nominate the pair as the "two favourite characters" of his boyhood.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Oscar Wilde      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : Modeste Mignon

Charlotte Bronte to G. H. Lewes, 17 October 1850:

'Accept my thanks for some hours of pleasant reading. Balzac was for me quite a new author, and in making his acquaintance, through the medium of "Modeste Mignon" and "Illusions Perdues" — you cannot doubt I have felt some interest.
At first I thought he was going to be painfully minute, and fearfully tedious; one grew impatient of his long parade of detail [...] but by-and-by, I seemed to enter into the mystery of his craft and to discover with delight where his force lay: is it not in the analysis of motive, and in a subtle perception of the most obscure and secret workings of the mind? Still — admire Balzac as we may — I think we do not like him. We rather feel towards him as towards an uncongenial acquaintance who is for ever holding up, in strong light, our defects, and who rarely draws forth our better qualities.
'Truly — I like George Sand better. Fantastic, fanatical, unpractical enthusiast as she often is [...] George Sand has a better nature than M. Balzac — her brain is larger — her heart warmer than his. The "Lettres d'un Voyageur" are full of the writer's self, and I never felt so strongly as in the perusal of this work — that most of her very faults spring from the excess of her good qualities [...] her mind is of that order which disastrous experience teaches without weakening or too much disheartening'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : Illusions Perdues

Charlotte Bronte to G. H. Lewes, 17 October 1850:

'Accept my thanks for some hours of pleasant reading. Balzac was for me quite a new author, and in making his acquaintance, through the medium of "Modeste Mignon" and "Illusions Perdues" — you cannot doubt I have felt some interest.
At first I thought he was going to be painfully minute, and fearfully tedious; one grew impatient of his long parade of detail [...] but by-and-by, I seemed to enter into the mystery of his craft and to discover with delight where his force lay: is it not in the analysis of motive, and in a subtle perception of the most obscure and secret workings of the mind? Still — admire Balzac as we may — I think we do not like him. We rather feel towards him as towards an uncongenial acquaintance who is for ever holding up, in strong light, our defects, and who rarely draws forth our better qualities.
'Truly — I like George Sand better. Fantastic, fanatical, unpractical enthusiast as she often is [...] George Sand has a better nature than M. Balzac — her brain is larger — her heart warmer than his. The "Lettres d'un Voyageur" are full of the writer's self, and I never felt so strongly as in the perusal of this work — that most of her very faults spring from the excess of her good qualities [...] her mind is of that order which disastrous experience teaches without weakening or too much disheartening'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Brontë      Print: Book

  

Honore de Balzac : [general reference to Balzac's works]

'Were you to re-read some Balzac, as I have been doing, it would greatly help to clear your eyes.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson      Print: Book

  

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