Balzac's Paris

“Amid the intellectual murkiness of the European scene, a few bright flames are burning: as witness the work of Eric Hazan.”
—New Left Review

“Hazan’s scrupulous readings of Balzac bring 19th-century Paris to life, shedding light on the social friction between old money and the nouveau riche that shaped the city in the wake of the 1830 July Revolution. It’s an enchanting literary love letter to the City of Lights.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Eric Hazan’s delightful cultural history Balzac’s Paris: The City as Human Comedy, ably translated from the French by David Fernbach, traces the roughly 35 years that Balzac spent living and working in the City of Light.”
—Tobias Grey, Air Mail

“Hazan is charmed to be in the company of his hero, and for the course of a 200-page tour we are pleased to follow along.”
—Oliver-James Campbell, Spectator

“Hazan narrates in the manner of a tour guide, hopping from location to location and offering up nuggets of commentary: pertinent quotes from the novels, or Balzac’s personal correspondence; etymological titbits; an apposite line from Baudelaire or Proust. The format, and the languid, dizzyingly directionless prose style, will be familiar to readers of Hazan’s best-known work, The Invention of Paris, a sprawling radical history of the city”
—Houman Barekat, Guardian

“A stellar feat of scholarship…”
—Wall Street Journal

“Denizens of [Balzac’s] city waltz in and out of the narrative, coupling and uncoupling, striving and skulking, gambling and dying … a journey worth taking, reminding us that through its many renovations, Paris has remained a place where “everything smokes, everything burns, everything shines, everything bubbles, everything flames, evaporates, is extinguished, rekindled, sparkles, fizzles and is consumed”.”
—Lauren Elkin, Financial Times

“[Hazan] died three weeks before the appearance of <i>Balzac’s Paris</i> in English. Fortunately, he left behind this illuminating, encyclopaedic work of fewer than 200 pages.”
—James Campbell, Times Literary Supplement, Books of the Year 2024

“[Hazan] is an excellent guide to Balzac’s Paris … [his] approach allows us to follow Balzac around.”
—Raymond N. MacKenzie, London Review of Books