Père Goriot And Eugénie Grandet
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Condition: Good to fair. Jacket: worn/faded, chipping and tears but still structural (refer to image). Page Condition: Good - possible tanning. Markings: possible previous owner inscription.
Two of the nineteenth century's most devastating portrayals of greed and paternal devotion are united in this landmark volume from Honoré de Balzac's monumental La Comédie Humaine. In Père Goriot, a retired vermicelli merchant sacrifices everything — his fortune, his dignity, his very life — for daughters who regard him as little more than a financial instrument, while the ambitious young Rastignac navigates the treacherous social hierarchies of Restoration Paris. Set against the same era's provincial bourgeoisie, Eugénie Grandet chronicles the quiet tragedy of a pure-hearted young woman crushed beneath the iron will of her miserly father, whose obsessive accumulation of gold poisons every human connection he touches. Balzac writes with the precision of a social scientist and the passion of a moralist, dissecting the corrosive power of money with unflinching clarity. His characters are rendered in full psychological depth — neither saints nor monsters, but utterly believable prisoners of ambition and circumstance. Together, these two masterworks illustrate why Balzac stands as the supreme architect of the realist novel, and why Tolstoy, Dickens, and Zola all acknowledged him as their master. For the reader who has yet to encounter these pages, a reckoning with the true cost of desire awaits.
Author: Honoré De Balzac
Format: Hardback
Genre: Classic fiction
Condition remarks:
Condition: Good to fair. Jacket: worn/faded, chipping and tears but still structural (refer to image). Page Condition: Good - possible tanning. Markings: possible previous owner inscription.
Two of the nineteenth century's most devastating portrayals of greed and paternal devotion are united in this landmark volume from Honoré de Balzac's monumental La Comédie Humaine. In Père Goriot, a retired vermicelli merchant sacrifices everything — his fortune, his dignity, his very life — for daughters who regard him as little more than a financial instrument, while the ambitious young Rastignac navigates the treacherous social hierarchies of Restoration Paris. Set against the same era's provincial bourgeoisie, Eugénie Grandet chronicles the quiet tragedy of a pure-hearted young woman crushed beneath the iron will of her miserly father, whose obsessive accumulation of gold poisons every human connection he touches. Balzac writes with the precision of a social scientist and the passion of a moralist, dissecting the corrosive power of money with unflinching clarity. His characters are rendered in full psychological depth — neither saints nor monsters, but utterly believable prisoners of ambition and circumstance. Together, these two masterworks illustrate why Balzac stands as the supreme architect of the realist novel, and why Tolstoy, Dickens, and Zola all acknowledged him as their master. For the reader who has yet to encounter these pages, a reckoning with the true cost of desire awaits.