Includes bibliographical references (pages 433-492)-and indexesĪccess-restricted-item true Addeddate 16:01:21 Boxid IA40115007 Camera USB PTP Class Camera Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier Robb shows how Balzac's craving for wealth, fame, and happiness produced a series of hare-brained entrepreneurial schemes which took him to the remotest parts of Europe, a love affair with a Polish countess whom he courted for fifteen years by correspondence, and some of the finest novels in the Realist tradition Graham Robb takes us through his early literary disappointments, his struggle against poverty, and the lurid commercial novels in which he learnt his trade. He was a relentless seducer whose successes were as spectacular as his catastrophes a passionate collector, inventor, explorer and political campaigner a mesmerizing story-teller with the power to make his fantasies come true. The living manifestation of the colourful and varied world he described, yet at the same time its most astonishing exception, Balzac is the perfect subject for biography. This is the first major English biography of Balzac for over fifty years. Xvii, 521 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates : 25 cm

Balzac graham robb