Honore de Balzac (May 20 1799 - August 18 1850) was a French novelist and playwright, commonly regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature.

He is best known for La Comedie Humaine (The Human Comedy), a monumental series of works consisting of over 95 novels, novellas, short stories, and essays, many of them linked by recurring characters. It was intended to paint a portrait of all aspects of society.http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ba-Be/Balzac-Honor-de.html

Honore Balzac had a great influence on other writers, both in his own time and later. Some notable examples are Charles Dickens, Emile Zola, Gustave Flaubert, Marcel Proust, and Henry James.http://www.answers.com/topic/honor-de-balzac

Early life and education: Balzac spent the first four years of his life in foster care in the village of Saint-Cyr before being returned to his parents. At age eight he went to the Oratorian grammar school at Vendome, where he stayed for seven years, spending much time in a punishment cell for disobedient students.

In 1816 he went to the Sorbonne; after graduation, his family wanted him to go into law like his father, but Balzac wanted to be a writer and went into journalism.

As a journalist, Balzac wrote essays, while working at the same time on his short stories and novels.

In 1820, Balzac completed his first work, a five-act tragedy in verse titled Cromwell. By 1826 he had written nine novels (of the type that is currently referred to as trashy) all published under other names, because he needed the money.

In the late 1820s, he also started several business ventures, all of which eventually failed miserably, leaving him in debt for years.

In 1832 Balzac came up with the idea for a La Comedie Humaine, telling his sister "I am about to become a genius."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honore_de_Balzac#La_Com.C3.A9die_Humaine_and_literary_success

Personal life and death: Balzac had health problems through much of his life, and his intense writing schedule may have contributed to them. He often worked more than 15 hours at a stretch, drinking black coffee the entire time.http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/balzac.htm

On March 14, 1850, Balzac married the Polish Countess Evelina Hanska, with whom he had conducted a romance for 18 years (mostly by letters). After their wedding at her home, the trip back to France took such a toll on his already precarious health that he died on August 18, 1850.http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ba-Be/Balzac-Honor-de.html

He was buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, France, along with many other accomplished literary figures. His friend Victor Hugo delivered the eulogy.

"A good husband is never the first to go to sleep at night or the last to awake in the morning."

"An unfulfilled vocation drains the color from a man's entire existence."

"Behind every great fortune lies a great crime."

"Conscience is our unerring judge until we finally stifle it."

"For passion, be it observed, brings insight with it; it can give a sort of intelligence to simpletons, fools, and idiots, especially during youth."

"All humanity is passion; without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual."

"Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact."

"We exaggerate misfortune and happiness alike. We are never as bad off or as happy as we say we are."

"Nature makes only dumb animals. We owe the fools to society."

"The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness."

• A Daughter of Eve

• A Start in Life

• A Woman of Thirty

• Adieu

• Albert Savarus

• An Historical Mystery

• An Old Maid

• Analytical Studies

• Beatrix

• Bureaucracy

• Catherine de' Medici

• Eugenie Grandet

• Juana

• The Alkahest

• The Brotherhood of Consolation

• The Chouans

• The Country Doctor

• The Deputy of Arcis

• The Magic Skin