(03/01/2008) A Harlot High & Low by Honore de Balzac. New York. 1982. Penguin Books. Translated From The French & With An Introduction By Rayner Heppenstall. keywords: Literature France 19th Century Translated. 554 pages. The cover shows a detail from 'Kleptomaniac' by Theodore Gericault, in the Museum of Fine Arts Ghent. 0140442324.
After OLD GORIOT my favorite Balzac novel, particularly because of the shadowy figure of Vautrin, the unscrupulous criminal genius.
FROM THE PUBLISHER -
In this splendid example of the 'Scenes of Parisian Life' Balzac brings to bear his encyclopaedic knowledge of finance, fashionable intrigue, and the ramifications both of the underworld and of the police system. The harlot of the title, elevated to the heights of luxury only to be reduced to the depths of misery, is no more than a pawn in what is essentially a duel of wits and ruthlessness fought between criminal masterminds. It is the figure of Vautrin, the Satanic genius at the heart of the web and one of the great characters of world literature, that effortlessly dominates the whole novel.
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