_Physiologie du Mariage_, the charming story of _La Maison du
Chat-que-Pelote_, the _Peau de Chagrin_, the most original and splendid,
if not the most finished and refined, of all Balzac's books, most of the
short _Contes Philosophiques_, of which some are among their author's
greatest triumphs, many other stories (chiefly included in the _Scenes
de la Vie Privee_) and the beginning of the _Contes Drolatiques_.*

* No regular attempt will after this be made to indicate the date of
production of successive works, unless they connect themselves
very distinctly with incidents in the life or with general
critical observations. At the end of this introduction will be
found a full table of the _Comedie Humaine_ and the other works.
It may perhaps be worth while to add here, that while the labors
of M. de Lovenjoul (to whom every writer on Balzac must
acknowledge the deepest obligation) have cleared this matter up
almost to the verge of possibility as regards the published works,
there is little light to be thrown on the constant references in
the letters to books which never appeared. Sometimes they are
known, and they may often be suspected, to have been absorbed into
or incorporated with others; the rest must have been lost or
destroyed, or, which is not quite impossible, have existed chiefly
in the form of project. Nearly a hundred titles of such things are
preserved.

But without a careful examination of his miscellaneous work, which is
very abundant and includes journalism as well as books, it is almost
as impossible to come to a just appreciation of Balzac as it is
without reading the early works and letters. This miscellaneous work
is all the more important because a great deal of it represents the
artist at quite advanced stages of his career, and because all its