# Balzac's Paris: The City as Human Comedy - Hardcover

by **Eric Hazan** (Author)

**Exploring Paris arm in arm with Balzac, nineteenth-century France's most famous novelist and observer**

In Balzac's vast _Human Comedy_, a body of ninety-one completed novels and stories, he endeavoured to create a complete picture of contemporary French society and manners. Within this work is a loving ode to Paris and an incomparable introduction to the first capital of the modern world.

To this ageless city he makes a declaration of love in an accumulation of finely observed detail - the caf?s, landmarks, avenues, parks - and captures the populace in countless meticulously drawn portraits: its lawyers, grisettes, journalists, concierges, usurers, salesmen, speculators.

Balzac gathered the elements of this Paris by sauntering through it. 'To saunter is a science, ' he writes, 'it is the gastronomy of the eye. To take a walk is to vegetate; to saunter is to live.' Eric Hazan follows in Balzac's footsteps, criss-crossing the city in the novelist's outsize boots, running between printers, publishers, coffee merchants, mistresses and friends, stopping for a moment, struck by a detail that would be fixed in Balzac's photographic memory.

More than a tour of the city, _Balzac's Paris_ is an attempt to measure the soul of a city as recovered in its finest literature.

### Author Biography

**Eric Hazan** is the founder of the publisher La Fabrique and the author of many books, including _Paris in Turmoil, _A Walk Through Paris, _A People's History of the French Revolution, _A History of the Barricade_,__ Notes on the Occupation_ and the highly acclaimed _The Invention of Paris_. He has lived in Paris, France, all his life.

**Number of Pages:** 208

**Dimensions:** 0.8 x 8.4 x 5.7 IN

**Publication Date:** June 25, 2024

## Details

- **Price:** 24.95 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 24.95 USD | In stock |

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- Balzac's Paris: The City as Human Comedy - Hardcover

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