Fiction · 1836
The Lily of the Valley
Honoré de Balzac · translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
A young man's account, written at the request of the woman he loves years after the fact, of the one great passion of his life — a married woman he adored with a chaste, consuming devotion that neither of them would ever act upon, and that shaped, and ultimately cost, both of their lives.
Honoré de Balzac published Le Lys dans la vallée in 1836 as part of his Comédie humaine, among the most autobiographical of his novels; Katharine Prescott Wormeley's English translation, The Lily of the Valley, first appeared in 1891.
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About the author
1799–1850 · Romantic
Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) naît à Tours. Après des études de droit, il se lance dans l’imprimerie et l’édition ; ces entreprises échouent et le laissent, dès 1828, endetté de plus de soixante mille francs. Il revient à l’écriture : Les Chouans (1829) est son premier roman publié sous son nom. Il conçoit ensuite La Comédie humaine, un cycle de plus de quatre-vingt-dix romans et nouvelles retraçant la société française de son temps, dont Eugénie Grandet (1833) et Le Père Goriot (1835). Après dix-huit ans de correspondance, il épouse la comtesse polonaise Ewelina Hańska en mars 1850 ; il meurt à Paris cinq mois plus tard.
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