Honore de Balzac to Evelina Hanska

Honoré de Balzac (May 20, 1799 - August 18, 1850), was a French novelist.

He was born in Tours, Indre-et-Loire, France in the rue de l'Armée Italienne.

He would become one of the creators of Realism in literature. His Human Comedy (La Comédie humaine) spanned more than 90 novels and short stories in an attempt to comprehend and depict the realities of life in modern bourgeois France.

Balzac's work habits are legendarily intimidating - he wrote for up to 15 hours a day, fuelled by innumerable cups of black coffee. Because of this extraordinarily large output, many of the novels display minor imperfections and in some cases outright careless writing. Several, however, are widely recognized to be masterpieces: La peau de chagrin, Cousine Bette, Le père Goriot, Eugènie Grandet and Les illusions perdues.

Balzac's realistic prose and his strength as an encyclopedic recorder of his age outshine any small detracting qualities of his style to make him a Dickensian bastion of French literature.

Balzac is buried in Le Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, France. He is commemorated by a monumental statue which Auguste Rodin was commissioned to sculpt.

Honore de Balzac wrote this letter to Madame Evelina Hanska, a Polish countess.

October 6, 1833

Our love will bloom always fairer, fresher, more gracious, because it is a true love, and because genuine love is ever increasing.

It is a beautiful plant growing from year to year in the heart, ever extending its palms and branches, doubling every season its glorious clusters and perfumes; and, my dear life, tell me, repeat to me always, that nothing will bruise its bark or its delicate leaves, that it will grow larger in both our hearts, loved, free, watched over, like a life within our life...