About the Author

Honore de Balzac was born in Tours in 1799 and died in 1850. Celebrated as one of the greatest French writers of the nineteenth century, in particular for his work La Comedie Humaine, He is best known for and credited with the invention of the modern realist novel. In more than ninety novels he set forth French society and life as he saw it. Somerset Maugham said, 'I suppose Balzac is the greatest novelist who ever lived'.

Reviews

“The greatest novelist of the nineteenth century and perhaps of all time.” —The New York Times

“The hero of The Unknown Masterpiece, Frenhofer, is one of Balzac’s archetypal artists. . .” —TheWashington Post