Droll Stories — Volume 2

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

3.7

Word count: 329K words
Chapters: 33

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.Droll Stories — Volume 2 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 23, 2004

Editor's review

Droll Stories — Volume 2 is the second volume of Balzac's collection of short stories set in Renaissance France, a distinctive strand of his early work. Drawing on folklore and old tales, these stories are humorous and even bawdy, full of mockery of human desire, religious hypocrisy, and worldly cunning, revealing a side of Balzac beyond The Human Comedy. This volume continues the narrative verve of the first, with lively language and plots marked by reversals and satire; it can be read as light entertainment and also as a window onto how a nineteenth-century writer reimagined the street life and imagination of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The Project Gutenberg edition is easy to search and carry, and is suitable for readers interested in French literature, the satirical tradition, or the full range of Balzac's work. Note that some content involves adult humor and coarse expression; read it in its historical context rather than judging it by modern moral standards.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in Balzac and French literature who want to see beyond his major works
Adult readers who enjoy satirical, humorous short stories and can accept a bawdy tone
Literature students studying the adaptation of folk tales and Renaissance-themed re-creation
Students who need a public-domain English e-text for course reading or comparative reading

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer serious drama or morally edifying works
Minors and readers sensitive to coarse humor
Beginners seeking a systematic introduction to The Human Comedy

Reading tips

Read Volume 1 first or learn the background to avoid finding the narrative style jarring.
Read one or two stories at a time and note the targets of satire and narrative reversals to appreciate Balzac's technique.
Read alongside background on Renaissance French society to understand the religious and street elements.
For courses, select one story and compare it with a passage from The Human Comedy to discuss differences in the author's style.

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 part of The Human Comedy?

No. Droll Stories is a collection of short stories independent of The Human Comedy, with a humorous and bawdy style that differs from his serious social novels; it is a supplementary read for understanding another side of the author.

How difficult is the English version?

The text is a nineteenth-century English translation, with sentence patterns and wording bearing the marks of its time, but the stories are short and plot-driven, so overall it is not very difficult. Annotations or a modern translation can help; do not dwell on archaic expressions word by word.

Is the content suitable for classroom use?

Choose with care. Some stories contain adult humor and coarse expression; for classroom use, select the stories in advance and explain the historical context rather than judging them by modern standards. It is better suited to university-level literature courses.

Comments

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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.