Melmoth Reconciled

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

4.0

Word count: 104K words
Chapters: 11

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.Melmoth Reconciled by Honoré de BalzacAuthor: Balzac, Honoré de, 1799-1850,Language: English, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Apr 3, 2005

Editor's review

Melmoth Reconciled is a philosophical tale within Balzac's La Comédie humaine, built around temptation, a pact, and the price of the soul. Though short, it distills his thinking on desire and moral dilemma. Unlike long novels such as Old Goriot, it reads more like a densely narrated, symbolic novella, suited to readers already familiar with Balzac who want to explore his philosophical fiction. The Project Gutenberg edition is convenient for reference and parallel reading, and works well as supplementary material for courses discussing Faustian themes. Note that religious and moral discussion is concentrated here; readers expecting a realistic social panorama may find it abstract. Read it as a thought-driven novella and attend to the cost behind each choice rather than seeking intricate plotting.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who have read Balzac and want to explore his philosophical fiction
Literary readers interested in Faustian pacts and moral allegory
Students needing short texts for French or comparative literature courses
Readers who enjoy novellas and close reading of symbol and argument

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting Balzac's long social novels
Casual readers who prefer light entertainment and avoid moral discussion
Readers impatient with religious and philosophical argument and wanting plot only

Reading tips

Read through once for the main storyline, then return to the moral debates in dialogue.
Note the keywords temptation, choice, and cost to map the allegorical structure.
If familiar with the Faust legend, read comparatively and compare how each handles the pact theme.
After finishing, write two or three sentences on your understanding of the ending, then check related criticism.

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

How does this story relate to La Comédie humaine?

It is one of the philosophical works in Balzac's La Comédie humaine. Unlike the social-novel installments, it focuses on desire, pacts, and moral cost. You can enter without reading the whole cycle, but knowing Balzac's oeuvre helps place it.

Is it short enough to read in one sitting?

As a novella, it can be finished in one or two readings. Read it continuously first to grasp the atmosphere, then reread in sections for the argument and symbolism, preserving narrative flow while deepening understanding.

Is the English translation difficult?

The translation retains nineteenth-century literary conventions, with long sentences and much argument; difficulty is moderate to high. Readers with solid English willing to look up words and read slowly can manage. If the English is hard, consult a Chinese translation first, then return to the English.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

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.