Analytical Studies

Notice the words: The man of distinction to whom this book is dedicated . Need I say: “You are that man.”—THE AUTHOR.
The woman who may be induced by the title of this book to open it, can save herself the trouble; she has already read the work without knowing it. A man, however malicious he may possibly be, can never say about a woman as much good or as much evil as they themselves think. If, in spite of this notice, a woman will persist in reading the volume, she ought to be prevented by delicacy from despising the author, from the very moment that he, forfeiting the praise which most artists welcome, has in a certain way engraved on the title page of his book the prudent inscription written on the portal of certain establishments: Ladies must not enter .
The two Analytical Studies, Physiology of Marriage and Petty Troubles of Married Life , belong quite apart from the action of the Comedie Humaine , and can only be included therein by virtue of a special dispensation on the part of their author, who made for them an eighth division therein, thus giving them a local habitation and a name. Although they come far down in the list of titles, their creation belongs almost to the formative era. Balzac had just shaken his skirts clear of the immature dust of the Oeuvres de Jeunesse , and by the publication, in 1829, of The Chouans , had made his first real bow to his larger public. In December of that same year appeared the Physiology of Marriage , followed eleven months later by a few papers belonging to Petty Troubles of Married Life . Meanwhile, between these two Analytical Studies, came a remarkable novelette, At the Sign of the Cat and Racket , followed soon after by one of the most famous stories of the entire Comedie , The Magic Skin .
We are thus particular to place the two Analytical Studies in time and in environment, that the wonderful versatility of the author may become apparent—and more: that Balzac may be vindicated from the charge of dullness and inaccuracy at this period. Such traits might have been charged against him had he left only the Analytical Studies. But when they are preceded by the faithful though heavy scene of military life, and succeeded by the searching and vivid philosophical study, their faults and failures may be considered for the sake of their company.