Le Père Goriot

Balzac began the work at Saché in September 1834, and a few months later the first installments (four in total) appeared in the Revue de Paris (14 and 28 December 1834, 18 January and 1 February 1835).

The first edition in book form appeared in early March (it is listed in the Bibliographie de la France as “to appear on Monday, 2 March [1835]”), in a printing of 1,200 copies. The reception matched the work: immediate popular success, soon the greatest of Balzac’s career. A preface, dated “Paris, mars 1835,” appeared in the Sunday, 8 March installment, thus following the book publication. In the absence of Balzac’s imprimatur, as he was unwell, the volumes were published and distributed without the preface being printed in time for the 1,200 original copies. It can nonetheless be found inserted in certain copies of this first printing; the gathering signatures for the preface, taken from the review, are lettered, whereas those of the volume are numbered.

Le Père Goriot belongs to the “Scènes de la vie privée” of the Comédie humaine, laying the foundations of a truly unique literary edifice. “This novel, which coincides with the first systematic use of the device of recurring characters, in a sense constitutes the birth certificate of La Comédie humaine. But while it provides a convenient landmark, a privileged moment in the novelist’s career and intellectual adventure, one of the highest peaks of his work, it nonetheless remains a novel that can, and should, be read for itself, and not merely as a ‘drama’ of fatherhood.” (Stéphane Vachon)

The novel was co-published by Jakob-Friedrich Spachmann, a bookbinder from Württemberg established on rue Coquenard [rue Lamartine], and also Balzac’s regular binder.

The spines have been skillfully and identically restored. Scattered foxing.