Victor Hugo, Notre-Dame de Paris. Pushkin, Boris Godunov.
1832 Travels widely. Begins corresponding with Eveline de Hanska, a Polish countess. Joins the neo-legitimist (ultra-conservative) party and publishes political essays. Rumoured to be going mad. Louis Lambert, Colonel Chabert.
Goethe, final revision of Faust before his death.
1833 Meets Mme Hanska for the first time in Switzerland. Signs a contract for the publication of Studies of Nineteenth-Century Life, a collective work which will stretch to twelve volumes over the next four years. The Country Doctor, Eugénie Grandet
1834 Birth of Marie du Fresnay, his supposed daughter by Maria du Fresnay. Becomes Mme Hanska’s lover. Meets Countess Guidoboni-Visconti. Has grand idea of recurring characters between novels, and begins adapting previous works to establish continuity. History of the Thirteen, The Quest of the Absolute.
1835 Spends three weeks with Mme Hanska in Vienna, the last time for eight years. Old Goriot, Seraphita and collected Philosophical Studies.
Gautier, Mademoiselle de Maupin
1836 Birth of Lionel-Richard Guidoboni-Visconti, his supposed son. Death of Laure de Berny. Liquidates La Chronique de Paris, the journal purchased the previous year.
Serial publication of Dickens’s Pickwick Papers begins in England. Some months later, Balzac’s The Old Maid is serialized in La Presse, the first roman-feuilleton.
1837 Countess Guidoboni-Visconti settles his debts to save him from imprisonment. His tilbury is seized by the bailiffs. Travels to Italy, staying at the best hotels. Exhibition of his portrait in a monk’s habit by Louis Boulanger. César Birotteau.
1838 Visits George Sand (who begins a nine-year relationship with Chopin this year). Travels across Sardinia, Corsica and the Italian peninsula. Incurs further debt after speculating in Sardinian silver mines. The Firm of Nucingen.
1840 His play Vautrin opens and is banned. Launches the Revue parisienne, which folds; his review of Stendhal’s The Charterhouse of Parma appears in the third and final issue. Moves to Passy with his mother, and housekeeper/mistress Louise de Brugnol.
1841 Signs a publishing contract for The Human Comedy, his collective title since the previous year. Ursule Mirouet, A Murky Business.
1842 Compares human types to animal species in the preface to The Human Comedy. Has his portrait taken by a Daguerréotypeur.
Mme Hanska’s husband dies. The Black Sheep. His play The Resources of Quinola is a flop.
Gogol, Dead Souls. Verdi, Nabucco (Nebuchadnezzer).
1843 Visits Mme Hanska in St Petersburg. Sits for David d’Angers. His health is poor. Writes a letter of introduction to Mme Hanska for Liszt, who tries to seduce her. Completion of Last Illusions, in three parts. Honorine.
1844 Due to ill health, travels and socializes little. Collects furniture and paintings. Modest Mignon, and publication of the beginning of The Peasantry.
Dumas, The Three Musketeers. Turner, Rain, Steam and Speed. Heine, New Poems.
1845 Travels in Europe with Mme Hanska, her daughter and her future son-in-law.
Poe, The Raven and Other Poems. Wagner, Tannhäuser.
1846 Mme Hanska delivers a stillborn baby, which would have been named Victor-Honoré. Cousin Bette.
1847 Mme Hanska visits for four months in Paris, and he makes her his legal heir. They winter in the Ukraine. Cousin Pons. Completion of A Harlot High and Law.
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre. Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights.
1848 Returns to Paris. Witnesses the sacking of the Tuileries. His play La Marâtre is a success with critics. Ill health prevents him working regularly. Returns to the Ukraine.
February Revolution. Second Republic. Louis Bonaparte is elected President. Revolutionary uprisings across Europe. Final abolition of slavery in French domains.
Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto. Gaskell, Mary Barton. Thackeray, Vanity Fair.
1849 Health deteriorates seriously. Starts work on projects he will never finish.
1850 Marries Mme Hanska in March, at Berdichev. (They are married for only five months.) On return to Paris in May, Balzac can no longer read or write. 18 August: Dies. A cast is taken of his writing hand. Hugo pronounces a funeral oration at Père Lachaise.
Courbet, A Burial at Ornans.
FURTHER READING
BIOGRAPHY
Hunt, Herbert J., Honoré de Balzac: A Biography (1957; New York: Greenwood Press, 1969). A short summary of Balzac’s life by one of his most scrupulous translators.
Maurois, André, Prometheus: The Life of Balzac (London: The Bodley Head Ltd, 1965). An engaging life by the biographer of Shelley, Proust, Hugo and Sand.
Robb, Graham, Balzac: A Biography (1994; London: Picador,.2000). The most recent to appear in English; Robb skilfully interweaves Balzac’s life with his work.
Zweig, Stefan, Balzac (1946; London: Cassell, 1970). Insightful and pays tribute to Balzac’s immense creative energy and vision.
INTERPRETATION
Butler, Ronnie, Balzac and the French Revolution (London and Canberra: Groom Helm; Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble, 1983). A study of Balzac’s preoccupation with the society that emerged from the Revolution.
Kanes, Martin, Critical Essays on Honoré de Balzac (Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1990). A collection of modern criticism and essays, with literary vignettes and letters by various authors.
Prendergast, Christopher, Balzac: Fiction and Melodrama (London: Edward Arnold; New York: Holmes and Meier, 1978). An exploration and appreciation of the ‘melodramatic’ aspects of Balzac’s writing.
Tilby, Michael (ed.), Balzac (Modern Literatures in Perspective series) (London and New York: Longman, 1995). Critical essays presenting reactions to Balzac’s work from the time of its publication to the present day.
HISTORY
Hemmings, F. W. J., Culture and Society in France, 1789–1848 (Leicester University Press; New York: Peter Lang, 1987). A study of cultural change and social development in the period between the two revolutions.
Perrot, Michelle (ed.), A History of Private Life: 4. From the Fires of Revolution to the Great War, ed. Philippe Ariés and Georges Duby (London and Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1990). A Balzacian approach reflected in the title: a history of the private, everyday lives of individuals.
*Zaïre is a tragedy by Voltaire, inspired by Othello. Orosmane is one of its chief characters, a type of passionate jealousy.
* The reference is to Molière’s Le malade imaginaire. Crevel is suggesting that Hulot is a cuckold.
* Philippe de Montbrison de Beaufort, marquis de Canillac (1669-74), soldier, wit, voluptuary, and friend of the Duke of Orleans.
*The worldly and coquettish heroine of Molière’s Le Misanthrope.
* It is in fect Alain, and not Gros-René, who says this, in L‘École des femmes.
†The famous chef, who served, amongst others, Talleyrand and the’ Czar Alexander.
* Famous philanthropists.
* Name of several Molière characters, but especially the hero of Le Médecin malgré lui.
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