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The Unknown Masterpiece by Balzac, Honoré de is a work of fiction available to read on EtoBox.

What is The Unknown Masterpiece about?

One of Honore de Balzac's most celebrated tales, "The Unknown Masterpiece" 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, which has served as an inspiration to artists as various as Cezanne, Henry James, Picasso, and New Wave director Jacques Rivette, is, in critic Dore Ashton's words, a "fable of modern art." 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.Honoré De Balzac (1799-1850) is generally credited as the inventor of the modern realistic novel. In more than ninety novels, he set forth French society and life as he saw it. He created a cast of over two thousand individual and identifiable characters, some of whom reappear in different novels. He organized his works into his masterpiece, *La Comedie Humaine,*which was the final result of his attempt to grasp the whole of society and experience into one varied but unified work.Richard Howard was born in Cleveland in 1929. He is the author of fourteen volumes of poetry and has published

Who reads The Unknown Masterpiece?

Author

Balzac, Honoré de

Publisher

NYRB Classics

Published

1831

Language

EN

ISBN

9780940322745

Category

work of fiction

Subjects

Literary Fiction, Romance, History

Rating

3.87 / 5 (1,279 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-14