The Ball at Sceaux

Balzac's literary output began with chronicles and sketches on widely varied social and artistic topics. The journals to which he contributed were increasingly looking for short fiction, which Balzac was able to provide. A collection Scènes de la vie privée (Scenes from Private Life) came out in 1829, and was well received: these were tales told with a journalistic eye which looked into the fabric of modern life and did not shun social and political realities. Balzac had found a distinctive...