The Girl with the Golden Eyes

by Honore de Balzac

Overview

In this influential novella, regarded as one of Balzac’s greatest works, a dissolute aristocrat competes with a shadowy rival for the love of an enigmatic golden-eyed woman–a crazed and annihilating conflict that plays out in the most darkly decadent corners of Parisian high society.

Beautiful and amoral, Henri de Marsay believes in neither man nor woman, neither God nor the devil. He believes in Paris, a city of decadence and sin, a city where every passion is resolved into gold or pleasure.

From the first moment Henri de Marsay catches sight of the girl with the golden eyes he is completely and utterly infatuated. Desperate for another glimpse of her dark and enigmatic beauty, every day he returns to where he last saw her. Over time, he learns of her name, Paquita Valdes, and of her address, a forbidding and heavily guarded mansion on the Rue Saint-Lazare.

Vowing to make her his, Henri de Marsay plots his elaborate seduction of the mysterious girl with the golden eyes, but with his triumph comes the bitter revelation that he has a powerful rival for her love—the Marquise de San-Real, his own half-sister.

A cry of vengeance and the call for blood bring Balzac’s taut exploration of the dark side of Parisian society to its unexpected if inevitable conclusion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9788826039466
Publisher:	PubMe
Publication date:	03/16/2017
Sold by:	StreetLib SRL
Format:	eBook
File size:	626 KB

About the Author

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) was a French novelist widely regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature.

Carol Cosman (1943–2020) was a translator of French literature, including works by Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, Émile Durkheim, and Jean-Paul Sartre.

Robert Alter is a scholar, literary critic, and translator of the Hebrew Bible. He is the author of over twenty books, including The Art of Biblical Narrative, which won the National Jewish Book Award, and he is recipient of the Los Angeles Times Robert Kirsch Award. He teaches at the University of California, Berkeley.

What People are Saying About This

Hugo Von Hoffmannstal

The beginning might have come from the pen of Dante, the end from the Thousand and One Nights; but the whole could only be the work of the man who wrote it.
—(Hugo Von Hoffmannstal)

Editorial Reviews

Part of his "History of the Thirteen" trilogy, Balzac's novella deals with the dark side of love as protagonist Henri de Marsay's attempts to seduce an innocent girl lead to jealousy and revenge. This volume is suitable for academic collections supporting French literature curricula.

Library Journal

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