Fiction · 1830
Vendetta
Honoré de Balzac · translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
Two Corsican families have been killing each other for generations, and the last Piombo brought his to Paris under Bonaparte's protection after burning the Porta house with the family inside. Years later his daughter Ginevra, studying in a painter's studio, finds a wounded officer hidden there — Luigi Porta, the one survivor, who does not know her name either. When they do know, they marry anyway, and Ginevra's father disinherits her without a word. The rest is arithmetic: what two proud young people with no money and no trade can actually earn in Paris, set against how long the old man can hold out.
Honoré de Balzac published La Vendetta in 1830 and placed it among the Scènes de la vie privée of La Comédie humaine. This edition is Katharine Prescott Wormeley's English translation.
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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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