The essays contained in this book are not intended to give information. They are concerned with ideas rather than with facts; each is a study of a problem, only in part a literary one, in which I have endeavoured to consider writers as personalities under the action of spiritual forces, or as themselves so many forces. But it has seemed to me that readers have a right to demand information in regard to writers who are so often likely to be unfamiliar to them. I have, therefore, given a bibliography of the works of each writer with whom I have dealt, and I have added a number of notes, giving various particulars which I think are likely to be useful in fixing more definitely the personal characteristics of these writers.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
(1799-1850)
La Comédie Humaine
Scènes de la Vie Privée
Préface. La Maison du Chat-qui-pelote, 1829; Le Bal de Sceaux, 1829; Mémoires de deux jeunes Mariées, 1841; La Bourse, 1832; Modeste Mignon, 1844; Un Début dans la vie, 1842; Albert Savarus, 1842; La Vendetta, 1830; La Paix du ménage, 1829; Madame Firmiani, 1832; Étude de femme, 1830; La Fausse maîtresse, 1842; Une Fille d'Eve, 1838; Le Message, 1832; La Grenadière, 1832; La Femme abandonnée, 1832; Honorine, 1843; Beatrix, 1838; Gobseck, 1830; La Femme de trente ans, 1834; La Père Goriot, 1834; Le Colonel Chabert, 1832; La Messe de l'Athée, 1836; L'Interdiction, 1836; Le Contrat de mariage, 1835; Autre étude de femme, 1839; La Grande Bretêche, 1832.
Scènes de la vie de Province
Ursule Mirouët, 1841; Eugénie Grandet, 1833; Le Lys dans la vallée, 1835; Pierrette, 1839; Le Curé de Tours, 1832; La Ménage d'un garçon, 1842; L'illustre Gaudissart, 1833; La Muse du département, 1843; Le Vieille fille, 1836; Le Cabinet des Antiques, 1837; Les Illusions Perdues, 1836.
Scènes de la Vie Parisienne
Ferragus, 1833; Là Duchesse de Langeais, 1834; La Fille aux yeux d'or, 1834; La Grandeur et la Décadence de César Birotteau, 1837; La Maison Nucingen, 1837; Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes, 1838; Les Secrets de la Princesse de Cadignan, 1839; Facino Cane, 1836; Sarrasine, 1830; Pierre Grassou, 1839; La Cousine Bette, 1846; Le Cousin Pons, 1847; Un Prince de la Bohème, 1839; Gaudissart II, 1844; Les Employés, 1836; Les Comédiens sans le savoir, 1845; Les Petits Bourgeois, 1845.