The complete online text of An Old Maid by Honoré de Balzac.

Had Balzac been a less masterful novelist, the disreputably profligate fraud in him might have overwhelmed his artistry. Still, the other Balzac, the artist, is tainted by his well-earned reputation for what has been called artistic license or dishonesty...

The French novelist Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) was the first writer to use fiction to convey the total social scene prevailing within one country at a particular period in its history. Commonly regarded as the founder of social realism, he also...

Byline: Banks now seem to be more suspicious of each other than of clients when it comes to the lending of money In the children's card game of Old Maid, each player chooses a card from the hand of another player with...

...

The title of this odd, anomalous volume comes from an episode early on, in which a Scots ancestor of Alice Munro takes his youngest son to the stony eminence outside Edinburgh Castle to see “America”—in quotes because the view from up there is actually only...

The title of this odd, anomalous volume comes from an episode early on, in which a Scots ancestor of Alice Munro takes his youngest son to the stony eminence outside Edinburgh Castle to see “America”—in quotes because the view from up there is actually...