Product Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

TERRIBLE BINDING!
I have two reviews for this book, but the most essential piece of information I can offer is that this book is very shoddily made - upon reading the book only once, it now looks like a well loved used book. Sections of pages cracked right out of the binding. Also, the edition has some strange text/typing issues which didn't bother me as much, but by all means spring for the other, slightly more expensive version.

I won't expound with a full review here, however this book is worth reading, especially to die-hard Balzac fans (of which I'm one). Learning that the piece was culled from unrelated stories made the somewhat shaky plot lines defensible, but it's strength is in just a few fantastic passages on women and age. A short read with some gems of prose - and how can you beat plot twists involving pirate queens? You'll see . . .

A woman of thirty
I love French literature and Balzac has an extraordinary insight into human nature.I always wanted to read this book however the translationis not the best.

Life in 19th century bourgeois France
Balzac guided European fiction away from the overriding influence of Walter Scott and the Gothic school, by showing that modern life could be recounted as vividly as Scott recounted his historical tales, and that mystery and intrigue did not need ghosts and crumbling castles for props. Maupassant, Flaubert and Zola were writers of the next generation who were directly influenced by him, and Marcel Proust (that other weaver of a great tapestry) acknowledged his influence.

He is worth reading for pleasure as well as for his influence on European literature.

Humanism and frivolity?
Balzac spent 16 years to write this book -trought 1828 to 1844 and it's divided in 6 parts. The first 3 goes to the middle of the tale and the narrative is deep and focused on the france social life trought the beginning of the XIX century.

Balzac shows in those firsts chapters a lot of questions about society and moralism, showing a good view trought humanism and the cruel place of a woman on society at that time. Altought the reader get inside trought the life of Julie, her bad marriage and her deisires for love, the narrator is always telling us the problems surrounding the emancipation of a woman. "The purity of a woman is not compatible with society's obligations and freedom. To emancipate women means corrupt them". It sounds like Balzac agree with the terms of society.

In the last 3 chapters the narrative get more dinamic and more superficial. Like a "blue library" tale. Those romantic -like a sugar cam- tale. So Balzac broke the rhithm of narrative. It really appears like a mistake. Another mistakes are the change of narrator focus - from 3th to 1th- on the 4th chapter, and the last mistake is some problems with time rhithm: in one page the history is on 1920, for example, and 20 or 30 pages after, passed 4 years on the narrative it starts like "it was summer 1921"...

Would Balzac made those mistakes? Or would it be on purpose? The author made a lot of questions trought society's frivolity and humanism. Those mistakes wouldn't be a way of showing critizing over morality trought society? These are some question that I have in mind... Would be Balzac superficial, ignoring those mistakes? Or would it be an ironic and slight way of showing his questions trought society? ... Read more

Product Description
The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Fiction / Literary; ... Read more

Product Description
The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Fiction / Literary; Fiction / General; ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Fun to read
It is an unusual Balzac masterpiece about love, passion and crime - a medieval story, fun to read, with a King turned into a detective and his avaricious silversmith, with the King's maried daughter who has a lover on the side, and the lover who tries to get closer to her by moving in with the Kings Silversmith... And above all these intrigues, the King is missing royal valuables and suspects one after the other... ... Read more

Product Description
Philippe and Joseph Bridau are two extremely different brothers. The elder, Philippe, is a superficially heroic soldier and adored by their mother Agathe. He is nonetheless a bitter figure, secretly gambling away her savings after a brief but glorious career in Napoleon's army. His younger brother Joseph, meanwhile, is fundamentally virtuous - but their mother is blinded to his kindness by her disapproval of his life as an artist. Foolish and prejudiced, Agathe lives on unaware that she is being cynically manipulated by her own favourite child, but will she ever discover which of her sons is truly the black sheep of the family? A dazzling depiction of the power of money and the cruelty of life in nineteenth-century France, The Black Sheep compellingly explores is a compelling exploration of the nature of deceit. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

A Great Surprise
I am fairly new to reading Balzac, and was pleasantly surprised by how quickly I became engrossed in the story.Balzac is a wonderful writer.His characters really come to life, and I became very attached to them, and didn't want the story to end.He touches on the best and worst qualities in people, and while I found I could really relate to his depiction of how "the majority" of people act, his heroes and heroines in the story are people you really grow to like and admire very deeply.And, the story takes some twists which were very unexpected.I loved this book!!What more can I say?

Machiavelli for fiction lovers
This might be Balzac's greatest novel, it is certainly his most perfect. Elsewhere Balzac can be garrulous, here not a word is wasted. The plot has a classic, beautiful symmetry. We are driven forward at a rapid pace by the author's logic. (Forgive the cliches.) Balzac greatly admired the Machiavellian element in Stendahl, but in this respect he far surpassed Stendahl. One can be "too good for this world".Nice people finish last.To fight evil you must be almost as bad as the people who threaten you. We need scoundrels to protect us from external enemies, but then who will protect us from our protectors. Anyone interested in the Bush Administration's war on terror must read this novel.

BRING ON THE IRONY
In his preface to this book, Balzac makes an interesting observation about 19th century France that seems to be a preoccupation of our century as well. Balzac states that young men who grow up without a significant male role model are destined to have a rough go in life. According to him, most of the tribulations that occur in The Black Sheep stem from the very fact that there was no father to steer the Bridau family.

The main focus of the book is upon two brothers, Philippe and Joseph Bridau, whose father has died, leaving their close to destitute mother to raise them. Phillipe ends up becoming an artist with a pretty dependable income. Joseph serves in Napoleon's army for a while until his final defeat and then, too proud to serve under the new government, becomes an unemployed gambler who steals money from his family only to throw it away at the tables.

You would think that their mother would favor Joseph with more love because he looks out for their family and provides a steady income and is completely devoted to her. She puts all of her love upon Phillipe, the ne'er do well who only sees humanity as a tool to further his own ends. She does this because she sees Joseph's profession as a painter as a waste of time in her practical mind. Real men become soldiers like Phillipe. So what if he's a vice filled man? She idealizes him so much that she can't see his faults.

Balzac is a genius. There really isn't a central character is this work. Everytime you think Balzac has settled upon a particular cast of characters, he exits them and enters a new set to interact with the plot. Constant reinvention. While Joseph is in jail for plotting against the government, Phillipe and his mother have to go rescue his rich uncle, who is being hoodwinked out of his fortune (a fortune, by the way, that the Bridau family is due to inherit) by a manipulating mistress and her lover.

This was a great novel. Not perfect, but great. Balzac is to me the most modern of the 19th century novelists writing in the Victorian age. He is not sentimental like Dickens. He was great at watching families squirming to get at money. Squirming to get money not for survival in most cases, but to attain status. All of the characters in this novel were drawn really well. Very strong. I would recommend any of the Penguin Editions of Balzac if you like this book.

Another superb Balzac's novel
Another occasion to live again an exceptionnal human adventure with Balzac.
A lot of emotion and intelligence ...

A wonderful novel with emotional highs and lows.
As historian and novelist Balzac paints a picture of post Napoleonic France through the eyes of an impoverished family, and the trials of their lives.After a series of emotional hits, Balzac takes the reader through acontest of wits, set amidst a web of intrigue, and a very contorted familytree.The end result is an excellent story with a sophisticated plot whichat times gives too accurate a portrait of the detachment of man. The BlackSheep also contains a short social commentary on New York, which thoughwritten 150 years ago, is still exceptionaly accurate. ... Read more

Product Description
Honore de Balzac's 1830 Treatise on Elegant Living was a keystone text on dandyism, preceding Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly's Anatomy of Dandyism (1845) and Charles Baudelaire's "The Dandy" (in The Painter of Modern Life, 1863), and marking an important shift from the early dandyism of the British Regency to the intellectual and artistic dandyism of nineteenth-century France. The Treatise is the first true philosophical expression of dandyism, and is full of well-crafted aphorisms: "Elegant living is, in the broad acceptance of the term, the art of animating repose," runs one classic definition of dandyism, and "One must have studied at least as far as rhetoric to lead an elegant life" asserts the importance of verbal pirouette and dexterous quipping to the dandy. Further embellished with anecdotes and historical and personal illustrations, Balzac's Treatise even features a fictitious encounter with the original dandy himself, Beau Brummell. Never before translated into English, this witty tract makes for an illuminating cornerstone to Balzac's Human Comedy (which was originally to have included a never-completed four-part philosophical "Pathology of Social Life"). Above all, it represents a decisive moment in the history of dandyism, and an entertaining exposition on the profundities of what lies deepest within all of us: our appearance. ... Read more

Product Description
The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Fiction ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Few Thousand Well-Chosen Words
A French cousin recommended this book for summer reading due to its detailed descriptions of the area of France we both prefer.
It is colorful and an interesting view of the landscape and population of the salt marsh country near St Lazaire where your best sea salt is gathered but the story drags and describes people who seem to spend their time doing nothing of any significance. It is a common failing of 19th century novels in all western countries, I think. They flirt, they picnic, and they talk, talk, talk. The world is changing all around them and their gentile aristocratic culture is marching steadfastly towards a merciful extinction of which they are blissfully unaware. Makes me wonder where we are marching.
I suspect I should read it in French to appreciate his style but the subject is not terribly enlightening. I kept thinking, "Wake Up, People"! ... Read more

Product Description
A Drama on the Seashore is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Honore de Balzac is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Honore de Balzac then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Product Description
The Physiology of Marriage, Part 1 is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Honore de Balzac is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Honore de Balzac then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Product Description
The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Fiction / Classics; Fiction / Literary; Literary Criticism / European / French; ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

4 and 1/2 Stars -- A Minor Masterpiece
Though not his most substantial or ambitious novel, Colonel Chabert is excellent minor Balzac, and his greatness is such that it would be most writers' masterpiece. The plot is simple and straight-forward but masterfully told, while superb characterization, deft prose, and a high sense of affecting tragedy combine - in less than one hundred pages - to make a great work.

As usual with Balzac, this is a historical novel, part of his Human Comedy meticulously depicting French life after Napoleon's last exile. While length obviously prohibits a detailed depiction on the level of longer novels, it is truly remarkable how much realism and detail Balzac manages to include. In elaborating his theory of life imitating art, Oscar Wilde said that the nineteenth century was largely Balzac's creation, and so it seems. The scene is sketched with documentary-like vividness, making early nineteenth-century Paris seem truly alive. However, Balzac does not focus on conventionally appealing factors, preferring to show society's dark underside - indeed exposing it to the extent that it seems dominant. Though the book ostensibly focuses on the wealthy and aristocratic, we get a clear sense of how Paris was in many ways dirty and barren - truly nightmarish for the poor and downtrodden. Balzac depicts the wretched landscape so vividly that we not only can almost see the ruin but also feel and smell it. The novel would thus be of considerable historical value even without literary merit; those with any interest in the era should certainly check it out.

Far more important, though, is its unflinching depiction of modern barbarism; Balzac sees the essential darkness at humanity's heart more clearly than nearly any writer and is unafraid to show it for what it is. There is enough scheming, double-crossing, lying, hypocrisy, slander, betrayal, deceit, and general treachery to fill a far longer novel. People - and by extension the society they create and uphold - are shown as near-inherently corrupt with little or no hope of improvement.

The title character is of course central to all this; one of literature's truly tragic figures, he is a testament to just how low a great and illustrious hero can fall. In keeping with the great concision, we see only the aftermath but are left in no doubt that Chabert has suffered greatly. The hypocrisy of a society that can exalt such a person when he is presumed dead but is so disheartened to find him alive that it tries to conceal what should have been exciting news is truly appalling. Chabert is the canvas on which a despicable cast of characters - his cold-blooded and ruthlessly Machiavellian wife, shyster lawyers, etc. - project their depravity. He is eventually so sinned against that, heart sick, he renounces society and his well-deserved, long-awaited reward. The final scene finds him penniless and perhaps insane, not even a shell of his former self - one of the most sympathetic and pathos-drenched figures to ever stain a page. The closing dialogue drives the point home with misanthropic poignancy, but Chabert's shockingly low status already shows all. Balzac painted more grandly bleak pictures, but this gives a clear idea of why he is often called the greatest tragic novelist; Chabert almost personifies tragedy, and his story is one of the most moving and memorable portrayals of just how low humanity can sink.

Another great strength of the book is excellent prose. The writing is deceptively simple; Balzac sculpts with precision and clarity, expressing a grand vision in remarkably few words. This is not only an incredible feat in itself but also leads one to other Balzac works - a significant virtue. Conciseness and relative accessibility make this a good place to start, and it is also essential for anyone who has been elsewhere enthralled by Balzac's unparalleled fictional panorama.

An Honorable Veteran
"Colonel Chabert" is one of Honore de Balzac's volumes from his omnibus work, "The Human Comedy."The Colonel is a comic figure in and old military great coat and a wig who is ridiculed by young legal workers at the beginning of the novel.But, the joke is on the clerks, because Chabert is a war hero of the Napoleonic erawho was given up for dead on a battlefield at Eylau. This translation from the French by Carol Grosman tells the story of the old soldier's resurrection in contemporary jargon.The novel is relevant today considering the service of soldiers in many wars continuing in our world.What happens to these heroes when wars end, or more accurately, shift to new fronts?Balzac paints the portrait of one old colonel who remains honorable and as a consequence seals his fate.The translation is very readable and the short novel is brief "scene from private life." The work will stimulate further interest in the monumental work of Balzac who had a relatively short life (1799-1850).

The best translation...
...of a great Balzac novella.Ms. Cosman captures the rigorous, logical quality of Balzac's prose - most translators get lost in unidiomatic wordiness. This 100 page novella showcases the Master's comfort with legal matters, his profound understanding of "the fang and the claw" and features at its center the incomparable Derville, Balzac's great, recurring lawyer character.I usually recommend Pere Goriot for first-time Balzac readers because of the rich connections between that novel and many other Balzac works - but I am hard pressed to imagine a better one-course meal than this rendering of Colonel Chabert by Ms. Cosman.I certainly plan to read her version of The Girl with the Golden Eyes.

TRAGEDY DISTILLED
One of the greatest novelists of all time, Balzac was most at home in the Paris of Post-Napoleonic Paris. In a time when the middle class was showing its strength and starting to reach towards the aristocracy, Balzac shows just how selfish and grubby and greedy humans can be in attaining and how treacherous they can be in keeping their all important upward mobility.

Colonel Chabert is a man disfigured in the Napoleonic Wars who was left for dead on a battlefield. After digging his way out of a mass grave, he finds that he has no legal right to his title or his massive estate. Nobody will believe his true identity. For ten longe years he goes about trying to communicate his plight to anyone who will listen. They only see a crazy bum, and his wife rebuffs his letters. She already has a new husband and kids. Finally Chabert is able to convince a lawyer named Dervilles to accept his case, namely that of reclaiming his title, lands, and wife. The problem is that noone is really interested in his life being resurrected. Most people would rather that he remained dead. So begins the ludicrous battle of a man against the law to prove his own existence.

This short but great novel, or novella, is a tragic take on the world's thirst forsocial status and the judgement by visuals that our society is only too guilty of to this day. If it walks like a bum, talks like a bum, it must be a bum. Colonel Chabert has such a hard time convincing people of his identity because of how they perceive him. It sounds echoes of Frankenstein in that a good man is reduced to a monster when all he really needs is love. The fact that even his wife wishes he were dead just drives home the isolated suffering of the book. As in all Balzac novels, you feel a world moving under the mantle of the book. The Human Comedy of Balzac is one of the crowning achievements of literature and ranks right up there with Shakespeare and Thomas Hardy.

Dead Men Do Tell Tales
Balzac, one of the greatest writers who ever lived, did not trip up with this one.I read it with great pleasure and conclude, as people so often say, that the movie based on the story did not equal the original.Ever the cynic (some might say 'the realist') Balzac portrays here the efforts of a noble-minded soldier, who rose from an orphanage to serve his country under Napoleon in Egypt and eastern Europe, only to reap the all-too-common fate of dedicated and true warriors---to be forgotten and ignored.Death (which he accepted) might have seized him, but he found a living death, a denial of his sanity and identity, as the reward of his service.Reported killed at the battle of Eylau, against the Russians, after a heroic action, the soldier literally crawls from his grave to a kind of shadowy survival.In his earlier life, Colonel Chabert had raised a woman to his own status, but now finds that she is unwilling to let others learn of her origins and does not want to recognize that he is, in fact, her long lost husband. Honestly thinking she was widowed, she married a highborn aristocrat who knew nothing of her humble beginnings.

The tale is one of greed, intrigue, loyalty and disloyalty.As usual, Balzac manages to cast a light, pitiless and bright, on every rotten corner of the human condition, while offering a few inspiring examples in contrast.Every detail of a lawyer's life in 19th century Paris is scrutinized, every glimpse of urban dairyman or elite country squirehood rings true.No wonder I admire him so much, no wonder I have no hesitation in urging you to read COLONEL CHABERT and any other volume of Balzac you can lay your hands on. ... Read more

Product Description
An Episode under the Terror is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Honore de Balzac is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Honore de Balzac then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Wonderful Classic Read
Certain books never get old and can be read again and again. This is one of them! ... Read more

Product Description
Publisher: Roberts BrothersPublication date: 1896Subjects: Fiction / GeneralFiction / ClassicsFiction / LiteraryLiterary Criticism / European / FrenchPhilosophy / GeneralNotes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be numerous typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

Product Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Product Description
Oh! Renee, you have made me miserable for days! So that bewitching body, those beautiful proud features, that natural grace of manner, that soul full of priceless gifts, those eyes, where the soul can slake its thirst as at a fountain of love, that heart, with its exquisite delicacy, that breadth of mind, those rare powers--fruit of nature and of our interchange of thought. ... Read more

Product Description
The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Fiction / Classics; Fiction / Literary; Fiction / Classics; Fiction / Literary; Literary Criticism / European / French; ... Read more

Product Description
The Cousin Bette, which was adapted for film or television more than once, is the story of Lisbeth Fischer, or Bette, a pour cousin full of anger and passion. Translated by James Waring. ... Read more

Product Description
A Street of Paris and Its Inhabitant is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Honore de Balzac is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Honore de Balzac then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Product Description
Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley ... Read more

Product Description
La Grande Breteche is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Honore de Balzac is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Honore de Balzac then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Obviously a copy machine did it
This is a very short book and this particular version was obviously copied by a copy machine (black smudges, etc.) Upon reading, the pages started to fall out. I am glad I only had to read it once and that I didn't pay very much for it. ... Read more

Product Description
Madame Firmiani is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Honore de Balzac is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Honore de Balzac then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Product Description
A Start in Life is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Honore de Balzac is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Honore de Balzac then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more