French journalist and writer, one of the creators of realism in literature. Balzac's huge production of novels and short stories are collected under the name La Comédie humaine, which originated from Dante's The Divine Comedy. Before his breakthrough as an author, Balzac wrote without success several plays and novels under different pseudonyms.
Honoré de Balzac was born in Tours. His father, Bernard François Balzac, had risen to the middle class, and married the daughter of his Parisian superior, Anna-Charlotte-Laure Sallambier; she was 31 years his junior. Bernard François Balzac had worked as a state prosecutor in Paris but was transferred to Tours because of his royalistic opinions during the French Revolution. In 1814 the family moved back to Paris.
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