274.

16.   Charles Baudelaire, Oeuvres complètes, ed. Claude Pichois (Paris: Gallimard, 1975–6), II, p. 120.

17.   Oscar Wilde, ‘The Decay of Lying’, Intentions (1891; London: Methuen, 1913), pp. 15–16.

Further Reading

BIOGRAPHY

Hunt, Herbert J., Honoré de Balzac: A Biography (1957; New York: Greenwood Press, 1969). A short summary of Balzac’s life by one of his most scrupulous translators.

Maurois, André, Prometheus: The Life of Balzac (London: The Bodley Head Ltd, 1965). An engaging life by the biographer of Shelley, Proust, Hugo and Sand.

Robb, Graham, Balzac: A Biography (1994; London: Picador, 2000). The most recent to appear in English; Robb skilfully interweaves Balzac’s life with his work.

Zweig, Stefan, Balzac (1946; London: Cassell, 1970). Insightful and pays tribute to Balzac’s immense creative energy and vision.

INTERPRETATION

Butler, Ronnie, Balzac and the French Revolution (London and Canberra: Croom Helm; Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble, 1983). A study of Balzac’s preoccupation with the society that emerged from the Revolution.

Kanes, Martin (ed.), Critical Essays on Honoré de Balzac (Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1990). A collection of modern criticism and essays, with literary vignettes and letters by various authors.

Prendergast, Christopher, Balzac: Fiction and Melodrama (London: Edward Arnold; New York: Holmes and Meier, 1978). An exploration and appreciation of the ‘melodramatic’ aspects of Balzac’s writing.

Tilby, Michael (ed.), Balzac (Modern Literatures in Perspective series) (London and New York: Longman, 1995). Critical essays presenting reactions to Balzac’s work from the time of its publication to the present day.

HISTORY

Hemmings, F. W. J., Culture and Society in France, 1789–1848 (Leicester University Press; New York: Peter Lang, 1987). A study of cultural change and social development in the period between the two revolutions.

Perrot, Michelle (ed.), A History of Private Life: 4. From the Fires of Revolution to the Great War, ed. Philippe Ariès and Georges Duby (London and Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1990). A Balzacian approach reflected in the title: a history of the private, everyday lives of individuals.

Note on the Text and Translation

The translation follows the text of the Pléiade edition of Le Père Goriot, edited by Rose Fortassier (Gallimard, 1976). This is based on Balzac’s personal copy of the 1843 Furne edition, which contains his final corrections in the margins.

The six sections take the titles of the four instalments of the novel as it appeared in the Revue de Paris (1835). The first and last instalments were made up of two chapters each. See Introduction pp. xvii–xviii.

The main source of nineteenth-century English equivalents for thieves’ cant and slang in the translation is Eric Partridge’s Dictionary of the Underworld (1949). Not all slang is explained in the Notes, especially where its main purpose has been to add colour or tone.

Note on Money

Financial references abound in Old Man Goriot (see Introduction pp. xviii–xxiii on Balzac’s innovative ‘socio-economic view of human relations’). Many of them are fairly complex and specific explanations, or interpretations, have been attempted in the notes. A number of general points are dealt with below.

Throughout the novel, characters refer to different currency systems, which it might be useful to clarify here.

The official currency in France at the time was the decimal (Germinal) franc, introduced by the Republican government in 1795 but not minted (due to a shortage of bullion) until 1803. The franc was divided into decimes and centimes and issued in 1-franc, 5-franc (écu) and 20-franc (napoléon) pieces.

This system replaced the Ancien Régime livre tournois (3 deniers to the liard, 12 deniers to the sou, 20 sous to the livre, 6 livres to the écu, 24 livres to the louis d’or). However, the livre tournois, exchangeable at a rate of 81 livres to 80 francs, remained in circulation until 1834.

During the Bourbon Restoration, the 20-franc piece, or napoléon, was renamed the louis.

Banknotes were issued by the Bank of France from 1800, in denominations of 500 and 1,000 francs.