Balzac
Honoré de Balzac
1799~1850. A French novelist. He wrote as many as 90 novels and they are called “human comedies.” The major works of his are Le Père Goriot (1834)、Le Lys dans la Vallée(1835） and others.
Vernon Lee’s novel Louis Norbert: A Twofold Romance(1914) was written against Balzac’s Louis Lambert (1832). Among “human comedies” works, Louis Lambert is classified into “philosophical research” and a speculative novel. Lee wrote Louis Norbert in order to criticize Balzac's ideas showed in Louis Lambert, though they have a little in common in terms of story.
Besides that, Vernon Lee mentioned Balzac many times in her works. Balzac’s short story Sarrasine (1830） is a story of castrato, like Lee’s ‘A Wicked Voice’ and his novel Séraphîta (1834 ） is a story of hermaphrodite, which is the theme often seen in Lee’s works. A short story 'Le Chef-d'oeuvre inconnu' (1831) is a story of an artist. Thus, Lee’s works and Balzac’s have a lot in common with each other. On Séraphîta, Lee mentioned it in a letter to Mary Robinson. (Selected Letters Volume2, P. 162.)
In "Rosny and the French Analytical Novels" in Gospels of Anarchy, Lee mentioned Balzac’s Le Père Goriot. She cited: "Is not a Père Goriot, for instance, an agglomeration of the parental quality of at least a dozen parents, something analogous to the creature on the Shield of Sicily and the Isle of Man, made of three legs without a head or arms?"(P.199.) In Laurus Nobilis, she referred to Balzac's "well-groomed heroes."（P.23.）
In a letter in 1888, Lee wrote that though she read several books of Balzac she found them "poor." （Selected Letters Volume2, P463.）
