Balzac's reputation is as a novelist. But short stories make up over half La Comédie humaine, in addition to scores of other tales and articles. Short forms appear early in Balzac's output, and shape his work throughout his career. This book looks at the whole of this corpus, at the nature of short fiction, and at how Balzac's novels developed from his stories — at the links between literary genesis and genre. It explores the roles of short fiction in Balzac' s creation, its part in producing effects of virtuality and perspective, and reflects ultimately on the relationship between brevity and ... More

Balzac's reputation is as a novelist. But short stories make up over half La Comédie humaine, in addition to scores of other tales and articles. Short forms appear early in Balzac's output, and shape his work throughout his career. This book looks at the whole of this corpus, at the nature of short fiction, and at how Balzac's novels developed from his stories — at the links between literary genesis and genre. It explores the roles of short fiction in Balzac' s creation, its part in producing effects of virtuality and perspective, and reflects ultimately on the relationship between brevity and length in La Comédie humaine.