Droll Stories: The First Ten Tales

Honoré de Balzac

Jan 2016 · Jaico Publishing House

About this ebook

An enduring classic, Droll Stories offers a highly animated and entertaining portrait of life in 16th-century Europe. Jaico Classics presents its first edition of 10 lively tales by the inimitable and irreverent novelist, Honoré de Balzac.

Written with the author’s trademark wordplay, stories such as The Maid of Thilouse present the good-humoured licentiousness of Balzac’s times. Tales like The Merry Jests of King Louis the Eleventh and The Venial Sin that once scandalized the public now simply delight modern readers.

Full of exquisite charm and colour, Droll Stories by Balzac is a must-read for any fan of the Classics. 

Honoré de Balzac was a pioneer of Realism in European literature and an inspiration to the likes of Oscar Wilde, Dickens and Dostoyevsky. He continues to influence the work of artists and filmmakers even today. He is famously known for his extensive collection of short stories entitled La Comédie Humaine.

About the author

Born on May 20, 1799, Honore de Balzac is considered one of the greatest French writers of all time. Balzac studied in Paris and worked as a law clerk while pursuing an unsuccessful career as an author. He soon accumulated enormous debts that haunted him most of his life. A prolific writer, Balzac would often write for 14 to-16 hours at a time. His writing is marked by realistic portrayals of ordinary, but exaggerated characters and intricate detail. In 1834, Balzac began organizing his works into a collection called The Human Comedy, an attempt to group his novels to present a complete social history of France. Characters in this project reappeared throughout various volumes, which ultimately consisted of approximately 90 works. Some of his works include Cesar Birotteau, Le Cousin Pons, Seraphita, and Le Cousine Bette. Balzac wed his lifelong love, Eveline Hanska in March 1850 although he was gravely ill at the time. Balzac died in August of that year.