A Second Home

Balzac, Honoré de, 1799-1850Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.4

Word count: 148K words
Chapters: 15

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.A Second Home by Honoré de BalzacAuthor: Balzac, Honoré de, 1799-1850,Language: English, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Aug 29, 2005

Editor's review

Balzac's novellas and short stories are often less familiar to Chinese readers than Old Goriot or Eugénie Grandet, and A Second Home is a text well suited to filling out one's Balzac reading map. The work continues La Comédie humaine's attention to family relations, property, and emotion, unfolding its narrative through the internal tensions of a family. It is short and tightly structured, allowing readers to experience Balzac's social observation and psychological portrayal in a relatively short time. The Project Gutenberg edition is an English public-domain ebook, suitable as English reading material or as a supplementary text for Balzac studies. For readers systematically reading French realist literature and hoping to understand Balzac's less representative works, this small book offers a low-threshold entry point. There is no need to rush; it can be read as a slice for understanding nineteenth-century French family ethics and views on property, or read alongside Balzac's other family-themed works to appreciate the common features of his character portrayal and narrative rhythm.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Literature lovers systematically reading Balzac and La Comédie humaine
Readers who want to understand nineteenth-century French family themes through short fiction
English learners who need an English public-domain text for reading or research
Readers interested in the relationship between property and emotion in realist fiction

Not a good fit for

Readers of popular fiction who seek only strong plot and fast-paced narrative
Beginners who wish to read Balzac's representative works
People who have great difficulty reading the English original and have no need for a bilingual text

Reading tips

Read one of Balzac's representative works first, then this book, to compare the narrative differences between his short and long fiction.
While reading, pay attention to property arrangements and character motives within the family, and jot down the relationships between characters.
Read through the English original once, then return to key dialogue passages to appreciate the language and psychological description.
If used for a course or reading group, it can be discussed together with other Balzac short stories on similar themes.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book one of Balzac's representative works?

No. It is a relatively obscure novella/short story by Balzac, better suited to readers who already have some foundation in Balzac for broadening their reading than as a first choice for beginners.

What are the features of the Project Gutenberg edition?

This edition is an English public-domain ebook released by Project Gutenberg. The language is English, and it is a free electronic text suitable for reading on electronic devices or for research citation, but it usually does not include notes or introductions by modern scholars.

Can I read this directly without having read Balzac before?

You can, but your understanding will be reduced. It is advisable first to understand the overall framework and realist style of Balzac's La Comédie humaine, then read this short story, which makes it easier to grasp its concern with family and property.

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About the author

Balzac, Honoré de, 1799-1850 Author

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) was a French novelist best known for his vast series La Comédie humaine. The library holds 143 of his works, including Father Goriot, Lost Illusions, Eugénie Grandet, and several volumes of La Comédie humaine. His writing is distinguished by dense detail, a large cast of characters, and an intricate social network, often linking separate works through recurring figures to portray nineteenth-century French society. He excelled at depicting the power of desire, ambition, and money through precise settings and strong narrative tension, and he exerted a lasting influence on later realist fiction. Beyond the broad outline of his life, public information is limited, so this note focuses on the themes and style of his works.