The Fatal Skin
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:
Book: Fair
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
In the dissolute heart of 1830s Paris, a young man named Raphaël de Valentin, broken by debt and despair, stumbles upon a mysterious antique shop where a piece of wild shagreen — a magical piece of skin — promises to grant his every wish, at a devastating price: with each desire fulfilled, the skin shrinks, and with it, his very life force. The Fatal Skin (also known as La Peau de Chagrin) is one of Honoré de Balzac's most celebrated works, a dark philosophical fable that launches the sprawling La Comédie Humaine cycle and chronicles the fatal bargain between human ambition and mortal consequence. Balzac masterfully weaves together Romantic excess, supernatural menace, and razor-sharp social critique, illustrating how the insatiable appetites of modern man — for wealth, pleasure, and power — inevitably consume the very life they seek to enrich. This Signet Classic edition presents one of the 19th century's most prescient novels in an accessible format, making it an ideal entry point into Balzac's vast literary universe. Rich with symbolism and propelled by a relentless, almost hypnotic narrative energy, The Fatal Skin leaves the reader to ponder a haunting question: what price would you pay to have everything you ever wanted?
Author: Honoré De Balzac
Format: Paperback
Genre: Classic fiction
Condition remarks:
Book: Fair
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
In the dissolute heart of 1830s Paris, a young man named Raphaël de Valentin, broken by debt and despair, stumbles upon a mysterious antique shop where a piece of wild shagreen — a magical piece of skin — promises to grant his every wish, at a devastating price: with each desire fulfilled, the skin shrinks, and with it, his very life force. The Fatal Skin (also known as La Peau de Chagrin) is one of Honoré de Balzac's most celebrated works, a dark philosophical fable that launches the sprawling La Comédie Humaine cycle and chronicles the fatal bargain between human ambition and mortal consequence. Balzac masterfully weaves together Romantic excess, supernatural menace, and razor-sharp social critique, illustrating how the insatiable appetites of modern man — for wealth, pleasure, and power — inevitably consume the very life they seek to enrich. This Signet Classic edition presents one of the 19th century's most prescient novels in an accessible format, making it an ideal entry point into Balzac's vast literary universe. Rich with symbolism and propelled by a relentless, almost hypnotic narrative energy, The Fatal Skin leaves the reader to ponder a haunting question: what price would you pay to have everything you ever wanted?