Novel
Old Man Goriot
Le Père Goriot
Honoré de Balzac · 1835
Opening lines
Madame Vauquer, née de Coflans, est une vieille femme qui, depuis quarante ans, tient à Paris une pension bourgeoise établie rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève, entre le quartier latin et le faubourg Saint-Marceau.
Madame Vauquer, née de Conflans, is an old woman who for forty years has kept a boarding house in Paris, in the rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève, between the Latin Quarter and the faubourg Saint-Marceau.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from fr.wikisource.org
Synopsis
Paris, 1819. At the Vauquer boarding house, on the rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève, old Goriot, at first respected, is now kept at a distance: his fortune seems to melt away from year to year, and only two elegant young women ever visit him. Eugène de Rastignac, a law student from Angoulême eager to succeed, learns that they are his daughters, married to a count and to a banker, and that he has stripped himself of everything for them. Another boarder, the enigmatic Vautrin, offers the student a faster way to make his fortune: an arranged marriage.
Context
The novel first appeared in the Revue de Paris, in four instalments, from 14 December 1834 to 1 February 1835, then in two volumes with Werdet in March 1835. The action is divided between Mme Vauquer's boarding house and the salons of the faubourg Saint-Germain. It is the first book in which the author systematically applies the return of characters from one novel to another: Rastignac had already appeared in La Peau de chagrin, and he reappears in many other tales of La Comédie humaine.
Who it is for
A novel of medium length, which can be read without knowing anything of the other novels in the same cycle; Restoration Paris forms its setting.
Prizes and reception
Presented by its English publisher as the author's masterpiece, it has been adapted several times for cinema and television.
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