The complete online text of Droll Stories — Volume 3 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...

Droll but touching 'Rocket Science' director gives characters Jewish identity Movie Review It's not unusual for a filmmaker to get a swelled head when he or she scores an unexpected hit. It could easily have happened to first-time director Jeffrey...

Chicago Review's interest in experimental fiction continued throughout the late-1970s and the early-1980s, even as the magazine published mainstream fiction by the likes of Edmund White, Stuart Dybek, Stephen Dixon, and Frederick Busch. There was a special section on "Very Short Fiction" in...