At The Sign Of The Cat And Racket Other Stories

Author : Honoré de Balzac
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781331335764
Total Pages : 818 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (357 download)

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Download or read book At the Sign of the Cat and Racket written by Honoré de Balzac and published by . This book was released on 2015-07-13 with total page 818 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from At the Sign of the Cat and Racket: A Bachelor's Establishment and Other Stories In the very interesting preface July 1842, which Balzac prefixed to the first collection of the Comedie Humaine, he endeavors, naturally enough, to represent the division into Scenes de la Vie Parisienne, etc., as a rational and reasoned one. Although not quite arbitrary, it was of course to a great extent determined by considerations which were not those of design; and we did not require the positive testimony which we find in the Letters to tell us that in the authors view, as well as in our own, not a few of the stories might have been shifted over from one division to another, and have filled their place just as well in the other as in the one. La Maison du Chat-qui-Pelote, however, which originally bore the much less happy title of "Gloire et Malheur," was a Scene de la Vie Privee from the first, and it bears out better than some of its companions its author's expressed intention of making these "scenes" represent youth, whether Parisian or Provincial. Few of Balzac's stories have united the general suffrage for touching grace more than this; and there are few better examples of his minute Dutch-painting than the opening passages, or of his unconquerable delight in the details of business than his sketch of Monsieur Guillaume's establishment and its ways. The French equivalent of the "Complete Tradesman" of Defoe lasted much longer than his English counterpart; but, except in the smaller provincial towns, he is said to be uncommon now. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.