# Lost Illusions - Paperback

by **Honoré de Balzac** (Author), **Raymond N. MacKenzie** (Translator)

**A new annotated translation of the keystone of Balzac's _Com die Humaine_\--a sweeping narrative of corrupted idealism in a cynical urban milieu**

_Lost Illusions_ is an essential text within Balzac's _Com die Humaine_, his sprawling, interconnected fictional portrait of French society in the 1820s and 1830s comprising nearly one hundred novels and short stories. This novel, published in three parts between 1837 and 1843, tells the story of Lucien de Rubempr , a talented young poet who leaves behind a scandalous provincial life for the shallow, corrupt, and cynical vortex of modernity that was nineteenth-century Paris--where his artistic idealism slowly dissipates until he eventually decides to return home.

Balzac poured many of his thematic preoccupations and narrative elaborations into Lost Illusions, from the contrast between life in the provinces and the all-consuming world of Paris to the idealism of poets, the commodification of art, the crushing burden of poverty and debt, and the triumphant cynicism of hack journalists and social climbers. The novel teems with characters, incidents, and settings, though perhaps none so vivid as its panoramic and despairing view of Paris as the nexus of modernity's cultural, social, and moral infection. For Balzac, no institution better illustrates the new reality than Parisian journalism: "amoral, hypocritical, brazen, dishonest, and murderous," he writes.

In this new translation, Raymond N. MacKenzie brilliantly captures the tone of Balzac's incomparable prose--a style that is alternatingly impassioned, overheated, angry, moving, tender, wistful, digressive, chatty, intrusive, and hectoring. His informative annotations guide the modern reader through the labyrinth of Balzac's allusions.

### Author Biography

Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) worked as a clerk, printer, and publisher before devoting himself entirely to writing fiction. A leading figure in the development of realism in European literature, he wrote more than one hundred volumes of stories, novellas, and novels, including _Père Goriot_, _Eugénie Grandet_, and _Le Peau de chagrin_.

Raymond N. MacKenzie is professor of English at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. His previous translations include Barbey d'Aurevilly's _Diaboliques_, Stendhal's _Italian Chronicles_, and Lamartine's _Graziella_ (all from Minnesota). His translation of _Lost Souls_, Balzac's continuation of _Lost Illusions_, will be published by Minnesota in 2020.

**Number of Pages:** 624

**Dimensions:** 1.7 x 8.9 x 5.9 IN

**Publication Date:** July 01, 2020

## Details

- **Price:** 19.95 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 19.95 USD | In stock |

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- Lost Illusions - Paperback

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