“It is the mark of a great man that he puts to flight all ordinary calculations. He is at once sublime and touching, childlike and of the race of giants.”

French novelist and playwright

Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. He is best known for La Comédie humaine, the ambitious novel sequence that portrays French life after Napoleon. That body of work is generally regarded as his magnum opus, and it gave him a lasting place in literary history. His writing is associated with broad social observation and the detailed depiction of modern French society.