Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) worked for three years in a lawyer's office, preparing to practice law, but in 1819, he devoted himself to writing. His early stories were hackwork published under various pseudonyms. In 1829, he published
La Dernier Chouan, the first story to bear his name and his first success. Over the next twenty years, Balzac's literary output was prodigious: three or four novels a year, sometimes more. All became part of
La Comédie Humaine, a panorama of the whole of French society, some of the most important works of this series being
Eugénie Grandet (1833) and
Père Goriot (1834). He also wrote plays and the popular
Droll Stories (1833).
Henry Reed (1914-86) was a noted poet, translator, and writer of radio plays. In addition to
Père Goriot, his translations include
Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac. His poems were published in two volumes,
A Map of Verona and
Lessons of the War.
Peter Brooks is the author of a number of books, including
Reading for the Plot,
The Melodramatic Imagination, and
Henry James Goes to Paris. He was a longtime professor of comparative literature and French at Yale University and University Professor at the University of Virginia.