Honoré de Balzac's Human Comedy Series of 29 Unabridged Audiobooks in 29 MP3 CDs
Honoré de Balzac
(1799 - 1850)
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon.
Due to his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, Balzac is regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature. He is renowned for his multifaceted characters, who are complex, morally ambiguous and fully human.
Balzac's Human Comedy
The Human Comedy (in French, La Comédie humaine) is Honoré de Balzac's 1829–48 multi-volume collection of interlinked novels and stories depicting French society in the period of the Restoration (1815–30) and the July Monarchy (1830–48). It consists of 91 finished works (stories, novels, or analytical essays) and 46 unfinished works (some of which exist only as titles). It does not include Balzac's five theatrical plays or his collection of humorous tales: Contes drolatiques (1832–37).
Another Study of Woman
Read by Nicholas Clifford
Running Time:01:38:38 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
A series of tales -- told by men, of course -- about women. Though the book first appeared in 1842, Balzac later added to it as an addenfum a tale of 1831, La Grande Bretèche.
Catherine De' Medici
Read by Edmund Bloxam
Running Time:11:02:24 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
The Philosophical Studies from The Human Comedy (La Comedie Humaine) are a series of works that are intended as a reflection on history in part through the use of fiction. 'Catherine de Medici' is one such 'study', and features, alongside detailed history (and even architectural) sections, elements of the 'story' are fictionalised. In particular, this happens through dialogue that describes the feelings of the characters and what they are doing, these parts in the manner of a novel. In particular, Catherine de Medici (apparently), was depicted by historians as a bad ruler. This book is an attempt to redress that misunderstanding. Catherine de Medici is shown as one of the most powerful rulers of her day, using the intricacies of court to enact measures to improve the situation of her peoples and herself.
César Birotteau
Read by Bruce Pirie
Running Time:13:59:23 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
“Rise and Fall of César Birotteau” (1837) is part of Balzac’s great novel series titled “The Human Comedy.” The story is set in Paris, in the years following the restoration of the monarchy after the Napoleonic era. The masters of the old society — the aristocracy and the church — had been overtaken by a newly energized middle class, with its merchants, landlords, lawyers, and bankers. French society found itself in a new world of financial adventurism, floating on a sea of credit and speculation. César Birotteau, a good-hearted and harmless man, has worked his way up from humble beginnings and earned community respect and commercial success as a perfumer. But now, as he tries to continue climbing the ladder, he finds himself entangled in a treacherous financial web.
Colonel Chabert
Read by Nicole Lee
Running Time:02:02:08 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Colonel Chabert is a soldier, who goes missing during the Napoleonic wars, and then returns from the dead, most inconveniently for his wife, who has remarried and has gone up in the world. This novella by Balzac lays bare the venality of the French Restoration period. It has been filmed several times, most recently in the 1994 version, starring Gerard Depardieu.
Cousin Betty
Read by Bruce Pirie
Running Time:17:08:10 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Cousin Betty (La Cousine Bette), published in serial format in 1846, was one of the last and greatest of Balzac's works. It was part of his long novel collection titled La Comédie Humaine. Set in mid-19th-century France, it tells the story of a woman who resents her position as a "poor relation." As we follow her schemes to bring ruin upon the more privileged members of her family, we see a society in transition. The stability and idealism of the old order give way to a new bourgeois world in which virtue is strangled in the struggle for power and money. In this novel, Balzac searchingly probes the psychology and motivations of his characters: his work influenced the development of literary realism, as practised by writers such as Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, Proust, and Henry James.
Cousin Pons
Read by Bruce Pirie
Running Time:12:46:57 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Cousin Pons is one of the final works in Balzac's long novel series titled The Human Comedy. It was published in 1847, along with Cousin Betty, as one of a complementary pair of novels, collectively titled Poor Relations. While Cousin Betty tells the story of a bitter woman who seeks revenge on her wealthier relations, in Cousin Pons, Balzac turns to the story of an timid, innocent man who is exploited and victimized by the wealthier members of his extended family.
Balzac offers probing character portraits and an indictment of greed and materialism in this detailed portrait of mid-19th-century French life. He is considered one of the finest European novelists of his century and a significant influence on the development of literary realism.
Eugénie Grandet
Read by Bruce Pirie
Running Time:07:17:13 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Eugénie Grandet, first published in 1833, is one of Honoré de Balzac's finest novels, and one of the first works in what would become his large novel series titled La Comédie Humaine. Set in a provincial town in post-Revolutionary France, the story deals with money, avarice, love, and obsession. A wealthy old miser must manage the passion of his innocent daughter, who later has to navigate on her own the treacherous ways of a world in which money is "the only god." Balzac's meticulous use of psychological and physical detail influenced the development of 19th-century literary realism, in the hands of writers such as Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, and Henry James.
Farewell
Read by Martin Geeson
Running Time: 2:28:34 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
In his startling and tragic novella Farewell (‘Adieu’), Balzac adds to the 19th century’s literature of the hysterical woman: sequestered, confined in her madness; mute, or eerily chanting in her moated grange. The first Mrs Rochester lurks in the wings; the Lady of Shalott waits for the shadowy reflection of the world outside to shatter her illusion. Freud’s earliest patients will soon enter the waiting-room in their turn.
Whilst out hunting two friends come across a strange waif-like woman shut up in a decaying chateau which one of them dubs “the Palace of the Sleeping Beauty”. Soon we are dragged back to the terrible masculine reality of the 1812 retreat of Napoleon’s army from Moscow and the grotesque massacre that was to traumatize the heroine, parting her from her lover.
Their reunion is more desperate still, as the earlier event is recreated in a bizarre and vain attempt to root out madness and compel the return of happiness…
Father Goriot
Read by Bruce Pirie
Running Time:11:27:18 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Father Goriot (Le Père Goriot), published in 1835, is widely considered to be Balzac's finest and most popular novel. It is set in Paris in 1819, after Napoleon's defeat and the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy. France was undergoing massive social upheaval, as the new bourgeoisie jockeyed for position alongside the old aristocracy. Against this backdrop, we follow the lives of Goriot, an old man who irrationally dotes on his daughters; Vautrin, a shadowy criminal mastermind; and Rastignac, a young man from the provinces who studies how to navigate the complexities and climb the ladder of Parisian society. Balzac's masterful use of physical and psychological detail makes this book a landmark in the development of realism in western literature.
Gobseck
Read by James E. Carson
Running Time:2:36:12 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Part of the La Comedie Humane and something of a sequence to Balzac's Father Goriot, the short book's title is the name of the pawn broker/money lender the father Goriot utilized to maintain his spoiled daughters in the luxury he had accustomed them to. This is a continuation of the tale of one of those daughters, Mme Restaud.
La Grande Bretèche
Read by Nicholas Clifford
Running Time:00:52:05 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
La Grande Bretèche is an addendum to Balzac's Another Study of Woman, and is the final of a set of stories told around a dinner table. This one, given to the guests at about two in the morning, is tale of marital infidelity and revenge,and perhaps might have given some of the audience a sleepless night.
Letters of Two Brides
Running Time:9:09:20 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Letters of Two Brides is an epistolary novel. The two brides are Louise de Chaulieu (Madame Gaston) and Renée de Maucombe (Madame l'Estorade). The women became friends during their education at a convent and upon leaving began a life-long correspondence. For a 17 year period, they exchange letters describing their lives.
Michelle Crandall reads Renee’s letters
Kara Shallenberg reads Louise’s.
Letters from the men in their lives are read by Peter Yearsley, David Barnes, Denny Sayers, and Sean McKinley
Lost Illusions: A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Read by Bruce Pirie
Running Time:13:45:50 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris (Un grand homme de province à Paris, 1839) is the second book in Balzac’s Lost Illusions trilogy, which is part of his sweeping set of novels collectively titled La Comédie Humaine. The story is set in post-Napoleonic France, when the new bourgeoisie was jostling for position alongside the old aristocracy. In the first volume of the trilogy (Two Poets, 1837), we met Lucien Chardon, an aspiring poet who feels stymied by the pettiness of provincial life. In the present volume, Lucien, now using the more aristocratic-sounding surname "de Rubempré," leaves behind his family in order to seek fame and fortune in the literary world of Paris. He is tested by challenges that are literary, social, financial, and ethical.
Balzac’s work was hugely influential in the development of realism in fiction. The Lost Illusions trilogy is one of his greatest achievements, and is named in the reference work 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. The final volume in the trilogy is Ève and David
Lost Illusions: Ève and David
Read by Bruce Pirie
Running Time:08:20:16 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Ève and David (1843) is the final book in Balzac’s Lost Illusions trilogy, which is part of his sweeping set of novels collectively titled La Comédie Humaine. The story is set in post-Napoleonic France. In the first volume of the trilogy (Two Poets, 1837), we meet Lucien Chardon, an aspiring poet frustrated by the pettiness of provincial life. In the second volume (A Distinguished Provincial at Paris, 1839) Lucien, now using the more aristocratic-sounding surname "de Rubempré," leaves his family in order to seek fame and fortune in the literary world of Paris. By the end of that book, he faced imminent emotional and financial collapse.
In this present volume, the reader is returned to the provincial town of Angoulême, where Lucien's sister Ève and her husband, Lucien's friend David, have been desperately struggling against clever competition to keep a their printing shop afloat. Their situation is complicated when Lucien's financial distress spills over into their lives.
Balzac’s work was hugely influential in the development of realism in fiction. The Lost Illusions trilogy is one of his greatest achievements, and is named in the reference work 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.
Lost Illusions: Two Poets
Read by Bruce Pirie
Running Time:06:22:36 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Two Poets (1837) is the first book in Balzac’s Lost Illusions trilogy, which is part of his sweeping set of novels collectively titled La Comédie Humaine. The story is set in post-Napoleonic France, when the new bourgeoisie was jostling for position alongside the old aristocracy. We meet Lucien Chardon, a young provincial who romantically aspires to be a poet, and his friend David Séchard, who struggles to manage his father’s printing shop and falls in love with Lucien’s sister Ève. The picture of provincial life that emerges is laced with greed, ambition, and duplicity.
Balzac’s work was hugely influential in the development of realism in fiction, and indeed in creating our sense of 19th-century European culture. Oscar Wilde archly said, “The 19th century, as we know it, is largely an invention of Balzac’s.” The Lost Illusions trilogy is one of his greatest achievements, and is named in the reference work 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. The two other volumes in the trilogy are A Distinguished Provincial at Paris (1839) and Ève and David (1843).
Louis Lambert
Read by Don W. Jenkins
Running Time:4:01:21 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Louis Lambert is an 1832 novel by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), included in the Études philosophiques section of his novel sequence La Comédie humaine. Set mostly in a school at Vendôme, it examines the life and theories of a boy genius fascinated by the Swedish philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772).
Balzac wrote Louis Lambert during the summer of 1832 while he was staying with friends at the Château de Saché, and published three editions with three different titles. The novel contains a minimal plot, focusing mostly on the metaphysical ideas of its boy-genius protagonist and his only friend (eventually revealed to be Balzac himself). Although it is not a significant example of the realist style for which Balzac became famous, the novel provides insight into the author’s own childhood. Specific details and events from the author’s life – including punishment from teachers and social ostracism – suggest a fictionalized autobiography.
While he was a student at Vendôme, Balzac wrote an essay called Traité de la Volonté (”Treatise on the Will”); it is described in the novel as being written by Louis Lambert. The essay discusses the philosophy of Swedenborg and others, although Balzac did not explore many of the metaphysical concepts until much later in his life. Ideas analyzed in the essay and elsewhere in the novel include the split between inward and outward existence; the presence of angels and spiritual enlightenment; and the interplay between genius and madness.
Love in a Mask, or Imprudence and Happiness
Read by Lee Smalley
Running Time:01:46:12 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Love in a Mask, or Imprudence and Happiness, is an entertaining short novel by Honoré de Balzac, unpublished in his lifetime. Beginning with a flirtatious conversation at a masked ball, Balzac introduces his two main characters, a beautiful wealthy young widow and a gallant cavalry officer, and demonstrates his creative genius with deft plot twists of hidden identity and romantic intrigue.
Modeste Mignon
Read by Multiple Readers
Running Time:9:28:45 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Modeste Mignon, a young provincial woman of romantic temperament, imagines herself to be in love with the famous Parisian poet Melchior de Canalis. However, he is not moved by her attentions. He invites his secretary Ernest de la Brière to "deal with the matter". Ernest answers Modeste's letters in his name and acts as her lover, disguised as Canalis. The scene changes dramatically when Ernest discovers that Modeste is, in fact, a rich heiress. Will he be able to win her heart despite his lie?
Sarrasine
Read by Chip
Running Time:01:39:03 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Published by Honoré de Balzac in the tempestuous year of 1830, the tale follows the undulating pathways of Sarrasine the sculptor’s shocking journey to his coming of age. As one of the “fathers of realism” Balzac painted with his words a vivid portrait of life in the swirling salons of Europe at the end of the Bourbon monarchy, and we follow Sarrasine from France to Italy in search of both his métier and his muse.
However it is also the story of La Zambinella, an Italian singer with whom Sarrasine falls madly and passionately in love. But that passion holds a secret which Sarrasine spies too late.
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Read by Bruce Pirie
Running Time:22:52:30 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life is one of the last great works completed by Balzac for his huge novel series entitled The Human Comedy. Sections of this book, in various groupings and with various titles, were published between 1838 and 1847. It eventually settled into the four sections found in the present edition. The French title — Splendeurs et misères des courtesanes — literally, Splendors and Miseries of Courtesans — has also been translated as A Harlot High and Low. The story picks up at the end of Lost Illusions (1843), an earlier novel by Balzac. At the end of that book, Lucien de Rubempré (born Lucien Chardon), a young provincial poet with great ambitions but feeble moral will, was heading for Paris in the company of a mysterious Spanish priest. In the present book, we quickly discover that the "Spanish priest" is actually Jacques Collin, alias "Vautrin," a master criminal first introduced to readers in Balzac's Father Goriot (1835). Lucien develops a relationship with Esther van Gobseck, a prostitute (the "courtesan" of the title). With these three main figures — Lucien, Vautrin, and Esther — Balzac explores the corruption of the aristocracy, the world of prostitution, the courts, and the prisons of 19th-century Paris. With masterful depictions of society and individual psychology, Balzac is considered a father of realism in fiction.
The Balzac Lost Illusions trilogy preceding this book:
Lost Illusions: Two Poets
Lost Illusions: A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Lost Illusions: Ève and David
The Chouans
Read by Jim Locke
Running Time:11:06:47 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Les Chouans is one of the novels in Balzac's series La Comedie Humaine. Its ostensible focus is a historical military conflict, but it also follows the love affair between an aristocratic beauty with one of the rebels.
The Duchess of Langeais
Read by Bruce Pirie
Running Time: 07:14:21 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
“The Duchess of Langeais” (1834) is part of Balzac’s great life’s work, the sprawling novel series called “The Human Comedy.” This novel is set in Paris, in the years after Napoleon’s fall and the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy. In Balzac’s view, the aristocracy had squandered its chance to bring leadership and stability to France, and was instead seduced by a sense of entitlement, wasting away in “the sterility of the salons.”
We follow the story of a love affair that is frustrated by the obsessive, willful manipulations of its two principal characters. The duchess is a “spoilt child of civilization.” Her opposite is a military hero, naïve in the ways of the salon, but accustomed to winning his battles. “Love” is confused with “passion” and twisted by the elegant artifices of polite society.
Originally titled “Don’t Touch the Axe,” Balzac's novel is a searing examination of the pathology of love, as experienced by the privileged of his day.
The Firm of Nucingen
Read by James E. Carson
Running Time:3:17:10 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Part of the Comedie Humane and a "supplementary" tale to go with Father Goriot and Gobseck. Nucingen is the married family name of one of Father Goriot's daughters. "James Waring" is a pseudonym of Ellen Marriage (Balzac was considered sometimes too racy by the Victorian Age).
The Girl with the Golden Eyes
Read by Martin Geeson
Running Time: 4:30:40 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Listeners who like to plunge straight into a story would do well to skip the lengthy preamble. Here, Balzac the virtuoso satirist depicts the levels of Parisian society as a version of the Inferno of Dante - but perhaps keeps the reader waiting too long for the first act of his operatic extravaganza.
Our beautiful, androgynous hero, Henri de Marsay, is one of the bastard offspring of a depraved Regency milord and himself practises the cynical arts of the libertine. His quarry is the exotic Paquita Valdes, she of the golden eyes.
But there is a mysterious third person in this liaison...
The shocking truth of their interrelationships marks this out at once as one of those French novels that Lady Bracknell would instantly ban from the house.
The Magic Skin
Read by James E. Carson
Running Time:11:28:27 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Something along the lines of Dorian Gray as part of the Comedies Humane Philosophique, this is Balzac's first successful novel. He even wrote "criticisms" of the writing himself in promotion of the book, in addition to hyping the work before it even came out. It is a criticism of materialism and French bourgeoisie as so many of his compiled works seek to be. Some same characters reappear.
The Red Inn
Read by P.M.Strahm
Running Time: 01:35:24 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Staying at the red inn. Two army surgeons get caught up in a murder, intrigue and execution.
The Vicar of Tours
Read by Nicholas Clifford
Running Time:02:48:53 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Over twenty years before Anthony Trollope wrote The Warden, in which the gentle but unfortunate Rev. Septimus Harding becomes the prey of an investigative journalist, in 1831 Balzac published his Vicar of Tours. There too, a mild-mannered priest becomes the prey of powerful enemies, ecclesiastical, social and political. Abbé Birotteau is no intellectual giant, but he does try to get along with others honestly, and suffers when they take advantage of his shortcomings.