The Unknown Masterpiece
(Paperback, Main)
Publishing Details
The Unknown Masterpiece
By (Author) Honore De Balzac
The New York Review of Books, Inc
NYRB Classics
15th September 2006
1st May 2001
Main
United States
Classifications
Physical Properties
Paperback
160
Width 125mm, Height 203mm, Spine 10mm
190g
Description
One of Honore de Balzac's most celebrated tales, this is the story of a painter who, depending on one's perspective, is either an abject failure or a transcendental genius - or both. The story has served as an inspiration to artist as various as Cezanne, Henry James, Picasso, and New Wave director Jacques Rivette. Published here in a new translation by poet Richard Howard, The Unknown Masterpiece appears, as Balzac intended, with 'Gambara', a grotesque and tragic novella about a musician undone by his dreams.
Reviews
The greatest novelist of the nineteenth century and perhaps of all time. The New York Times
The hero of The Unknown Masterpiece, Frenhofer, is one of Balzacs archetypal artists. . . TheWashington Post
Author Bio
Honore de Balzac was born in Tours in 1799 and died in 1850. Celebrated as one of the greatest French writers of the nineteenth century, in particular for his work La Comedie Humaine, He is best known for and credited with the invention of the modern realist novel. In more than ninety novels he set forth French society and life as he saw it. Somerset Maugham said, 'I suppose Balzac is the greatest novelist who ever lived'.
