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Eugenie Grandet

Name: Eugenie Grandet
Author: Honore de Balzac
ISBN: 9780099560869

by Honore de Balzac, Rose Tremain (Introduction)

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Overview

Published in association with the Orange Prize for fiction, with an introduction by Rose Tremain, describing why she chose it as the book she'd like to pass on to the next generation Monsieur Grandet is a very rich man whose chief care is his gold. He runs his household with exacting miserly attention and his wife and daughter suffer a Spartan existence. On the evening of his daughter Eugénie's 23rd birthday his foppish nephew Charles suddenly arrives from Paris. Eugénie has never known passion, but now, in an instant, she falls in love and her life is changed forever. Monsieur Grandet will not countenance his daughter's marriage to her penniless cousin and Eugénie's determination to follow her heart leads her into direct conflict with her father.

A cynical and panoramic view of 19th century Paris.

Synopsis

'This brilliant but devastatingly sad novel moved me so much, I began it again the moment I got to the end' Rose Tremain

Monsieur Grandet is a very rich man whose chief care is his gold. He runs his household with exacting miserly attention and his wife and daughter suffer a Spartan existence. On the evening of his daughter Eugenie's twenty third birthday his foppish nephew Charles suddenly arrives from Paris.

Eugenie has never known passion. Now, in an instant, she falls in love and her life is changed forever. Monsieur Grandet will not countenance his daughter's marriage to her penniless cousin and Eugenie's determination to follow her heart leads her into direct conflict with her father.

About the Author, Honore de Balzac

Honoré de Balzac's (1799–1850) masterpiece Comédie humaine comprises 91 separate works, including Eugénie Grandet, Père Goirot, The Wild Ass's Skin, and The Black Sheep. Many of his novels were critically acclaimed on publication, and went on to profoundly influence authors from Marcel Proust and Gustave Flaubert to Charles Dickens and Henry James. Rose Tremain is the author of Music & Silence, which won a Whitbread Award; Restoration, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize; The Road Home, which won the Orange Prize; and Trespass. She has judged the Booker Prize twice.

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Editorials

From the Publisher

"This brilliant but devastatingly sad novel moved me so much, I began it again the moment I got to the end." —Rose Tremain

Library Journal

Balzac's 1834 King Lear-esque novel here gets a little fresh air breathed into it by Burton Raffel, who won the 1991 French-American Translation Prize.