{"product_id":"2026200012543-secondhand-balzac-and-his-world","title":"Balzac And His World","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good\u003cbr\u003eJacket: Worn\/faded, no tears\u003cbr\u003ePages: Tanning and foxing\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFew literary figures loom as large over the nineteenth century as Honoré de Balzac, and Félicien Marceau's Balzac and His World presents a sweeping and intimate portrait of the great French novelist and the vast human comedy he constructed across his lifetime of furious writing. Translated from the French by Derek Coltman, this critically acclaimed study chronicles the intricate web of characters, social classes, and moral landscapes that populate Balzac's monumental La Comédie Humaine, illuminating how one man's obsessive vision gave birth to an entire fictional universe teeming with ambition, desire, and ruin.\n\nMarceau, himself a celebrated French novelist and member of the Académie française, writes with the authority and empathy of a fellow craftsman, dissecting Balzac's creative method with surgical precision while never sacrificing narrative verve. The work argues compellingly that Balzac did not merely reflect French society — he invented the very template by which modern fiction would come to understand it. For anyone captivated by the origins of the realist novel or the furious genius behind its greatest practitioner, this volume poses an irresistible question: where does the world end and Balzac's imagination begin?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49130945544411,"sku":"2026200012543-SECONDHAND","price":15.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/bbfdf3fe-a9c8-4edd-bacf-069c5d76cd26.png?v=1786593115","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026200012543-secondhand-balzac-and-his-world","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}