Edgar Saltus

In the first major English biography of Honore de Balzac for over fifty years, Graham Robb has produced a compelling portrait of the great French novelist whose powers of creation were matched only by his self-destructive tendencies. As colorful as the world he described, Balzac is the perfect subject for biography: a relentless seducer whose successes were as spectacular as his catastrophes; a passionate collector, inventor, explorer, and political campaigner; a mesmerizing storyteller with the power to make his fantasies come true. Balzac's early life was a struggle against literary disappointment and poverty, and he learned his trade by writing a series of lurid commercial novels. Robb shows how Balzac's craving for wealth, fame, and happiness produced a series of hare-brained entrepreneurial schemes which took him to the remotest parts of Europe and into a love affair with a Polish countess whom he courted for fifteen years by correspondence. Out of these experiences emerged some of the finest novels in the Realist tradition. Skillfully interweaving the life with the novels, Robb presents Balzac as one of the great tragi-comic heroes of the nineteenth century, a man whose influence both in and outside his native France has been, and still is, immense.

Essay about New York City, including images of Manhattan as seen from the Flatiron Building.

After missing out on an inheritance of seven million dollars and recovering it through legal means, who would give the money away? Tristrem Varick would. This righteous and idealistic young New Yorker is the epitome of goodness. When he returns home after traveling Europe in his adolescent years, Tristrem falls head over heels in love with Viola Raritan, an aspiring singer who is stunning but jaded and indifferent. Viola initially rejects his advances, but then suddenly changes her mind, only to break off the engagement just as suddenly before disappearing. Convinced that a misunderstanding lies at the heart of her disappearance, Tristrem sets out to find her.

After the sudden, untimely death of his wife, the wealthy Mr. Incoul proposes to Miss Maida Barhyte: “Marry me, and you will never want for anything again.” Young Maida, under pressure from her mother and facing a future as a housemaid, reluctantly agrees, on the condition that they live as though unmarried—as brother and sister would—until she feels they’ve each come into their own. They wed on these terms and subsequently embark on a honeymoon across Europe. But just as Maida begins to adjust to this unconventional arrangement, the unexpected occurs: at a bullfight in Spain, a former lover resurfaces, vying for her attention once more. Mr. Incoul remains blissfully unaware of this development. Or does he? In Mr. Incoul’s Misadventure, his first published work of fiction, Edgar Saltus eruditely applies the biting pessimism that he previously studied in his philosophical works The Philosophy of Disenchantment and The Anatomy of Negation.