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Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings by Mary F. (Mary Frances) Sandars
page 5 of 313 (01%)

I must finish by thanking Mr. Curtis Brown most heartily for the
trouble he has taken on my behalf, for the useful hints he has given
me, and for the patience with which he has elucidated the difficulties
of an inexperienced writer.

MARY F. SANDARS.





HONORE DE BALZAC



CHAPTER I

Balzac's claims to greatness--The difficulty in attempting a
complete Life--His complex character--The intention of this book.

At a time when the so-called Realistic School is in the ascendant
among novelists, it seems strange that little authentic information
should have been published in the English language about the great
French writer, Honore de Balzac. Almost alone among his
contemporaries, he dared to claim the interest of the world for
ordinary men and women solely on the ground of a common humanity. Thus
he was the first to embody in literature the principle of Burns that
"a man's a man for a' that"; and though this fact has now become a
truism, it was a discovery, and an important discovery, when Balzac
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