CHAPTER I
The commercial traveller, a personage unknown to antiquity,
is one of the striking figures created by the manners
and customs of our present epoch. May he not,
in some conceivable orde...
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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. Common...
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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 f...
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The Illustrious Gaudissart
Honoré de Balzac
Honore de Balzac