Author Honore de Balzac

"Father Goriot" is one of Balzac's most famous novels, which are included in the cycle "Human Comedy". The main events of the novel take place in Paris, in the boarding house of Madame Voque, tucked away at the bottom of the street Nev-Saint-Genevieve, where for a small fee live inconspicuous, shabby lives of life. In the attic of this boarding house otest trades its miserable existence the protagonist of the novel Papa Goriot - once a successful bread merchant. Like King Lear, he spent almost all of his fortune raising his beloved daughters. Having provided each rich dowry, he left himself only a small sum, in the hope that he would always be able to find their love and support. But his hopes were sent to dust. Having successfully married and became secular ladies, the daughters began to be ashamed of their father and remembered him only when they needed money. Gradually, Papa Goriot gave them everything he had and was left with nothing. He became the laughing stock of the whole guesthouse, the tenants despised him, and only one, poor student Eugene de Rastignyak, looked at the old man with sympathy...

"The Brilliance and Poverty of the Courtesans" is one of the most famous novels in the series "Human Comedy" dedicated to the secret side of the life of the higher Parisian society. How seductive and insidious the mores of the Parisian light are, how cruel and ruthless its laws are! A lot of fates, woven by intrigues, thirst for fame, love, betrayal in a tight knot, which is able only the tragic death of the beautiful courtesan Esther and Lucien de Rubampre - the main characters of the novel Balzac.

One of the most amazing novels of the Enlightenment addresses the age-old theme of the confrontation of pure soul and true evil. What to do a young man who was left without a penny in his pocket? All his dreams and hopes are ready to collapse overnight, but fate offers him to make a deal with the devil. But the granted deliverance will either become the happiness of the main character, or his destruction, because every desire is followed by payment at a cost to life. Honore de Balzac's work is part of an epic series that includes more than 90 novels, novels and short stories intertwined with a single idea.