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Old Man Goriot
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Old Man Goriot Paperback - 2011

by Balzac, Honoré de (Author)/ Robb, Graham (Introduction by)/ McCannon, Olivia (Translated by)

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Penguin Classics, 2011. Paperback. New. 336 pages. 7.75x5.25x0.75 inches.
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Summary

A witty and reflective look at a society driven by social ambition and lust for riches-in a brilliant new translation.

Eugene wants to get on in the world. So he has come to Paris, where the streets teem with chancers, criminals, and social climbers-and everyone is out for what he can get. When he finds a place to stay at a shabby boarding house, he sees the potential to make a fortune in two beautiful, aristocratic women who visit the lonely old lodger Goriot. Could they bring Eugene the status and acceptance he craves? Nothing is as it seems in Paris, however, and soon he is over his head in a world of greed and obsession.

From the publisher

Monsieur Goriot is one of a disparate group of lodgers at Mademe Vauquer's dingy Parisian boarding house. At first his wealth inspires respect, but as his circumstances are mysteriously reduced he becomes shunned by those around him, and soon his only remaining visitors are his two beautifully dressed daughters. Goriot's fate is intertwined with two other fellow boarders: the young social climber Eugene Rastignac, who sees a way to gain the acceptance and wealth he craves, and the enigmatic figure of Vautrin, who is hiding darker secrets than anyone. Weaving a compelling and panoramic story of love, money, self-sacrifice, corruption, greed and ambition, Old Man Goriot is Balzac's acknowledged masterpiece. A key novel in his Comdie Humaine series, it is a vividly realized portrait of bourgeois Parisian society in the years following the French Revolution.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

About the author

The son of a civil servant, Honor de Balzac was born in 1799 in Tours, France. After attending boarding school in Vendme, he gravitated to Paris where he worked as a legal clerk and a hack writer, using various pseudonyms, often in collaboration with other writers. Balzac turned exclusively to fiction at the age of thirty and went on to write a large number of novels and short stories set amid turbulent nineteenth-century France. He entitled his collective works The Human Comedy. Along with Victor Hugo and Dumas pre and fils, Balzac was one of the pillars of French romantic literature. He died in 1850, shortly after his marriage to the Polish countess Evelina Hanska, his lover of eighteen years.

Graham Robb is the author of three prize-winning biographies, each one selected as New York Times Best Books. His most recent works, The Discovery of France and Parisians, have earned several awards and much acclaim between them. He lives on the Anglo-Scottish border.