"The Mysterious Mansion": In this Poe-like tale, set in "an old gray house," a man exacts a bizarre revenge on his unfaithful wife and her lover. This chilling story is one of Balzac's most popular. "Walter Zimmerman excellently narrates two mysteries of Balzac that will please contemporary listeners. It's as if Balzac shares a secret when, [in "The Mysterious Mansion"], the reader's soft voice reveals the grim ending of the love affair of a Spanish nobleman." (ALA
Booklist)
"Pére Goriot": Among the novels of Balzac’s The Human Comedy is Pére Goriot, considered by many to be his highest achievement. Balzac's many masteries all find their fullest expression here. The novel was written when Balzac's genius was at its height and when his physical powers were not as yet impaired by his enormous labor and reckless disregard for his health. The history of Goriot and his daughters, the fortunes of Eugene, and the mysterious work of Vautrin, not only receive due and unperplexed development, but work upon each other with correspondence and interdependence that forms the rarest gift of the novelist. Nowhere else is Balzac's charm presented in a more pervading and satisfactory manner than in this novel. This text was translated by Ellen Marriage.
