Shine and poverty of courtesans. Evgenia Grande. Lilia Valley. Balzac O. de

The famous French writer, one of the founders of realism in literature, Honore de Balzac stubbornly sought the formula for his time, the formula of human life. In search of a universal key to the human universe, he created a whole world - “Human Comedy”, a unique cycle uniting several dozen novels and short stories and many characters.

“My work,” wrote Balzac, “should incorporate all the types of people, all social provisions, it should embody all social shifts, so that not a single life situation, not a single person, not a single character , male or female, no views... did not remain forgotten. " The novels included in the present publication represent different parts of this cycle: “The brilliance and poverty of courtesans” - “Scenes of Parisian life”, “Evgeny Grande” - “Scenes of Provincial Life”, “Lily of the Valley” - “Stage of rural life”. Secular beauties and fallen women, usurers and young ambitious people, aristocrats, bankers, police and city poor - all of them become heroes of Balzac, for whom the spiritual qualities of people do not depend on the social situation.

The unsurpassed novelist, Balzac was able to combine a fascinating plot and a subtle psychological analysis, paintings of social morals and a piercing story of a particular person.