Excerpt from The Dramatic Works of Honore De Balzac, Vol. 1 It is the first time, to our knowledge, that the five plays constituting the Dramatic Works of Honore dc Balzac are rendered into the English language. Certainly none of the collections of the famous Frenchman's magnum opus, issued in England or America, and so justly popular on both sides of the Ocean, include these two volumes which are invariably comprised in the French sets of the same works. This singular omission needs perhaps a few words of explanation, as a kind of preface to this translation. To begin with, it is well known that publishers are often overcautious in their acceptance of translated works of fiction. Indeed an author has had to gain a very wide reputation in his own country before securing the remotest chance to the honor of transference into a foreign language. Then, again, only such works of his as have met with a particularly flattering welcome in the original are in demand outside of the land of his birth. Thus the probabilities are great that the author venturing abroad will obtain but a very incomplete hearing, doubtless, limited to what in the book-world is called his "moneymaking" successes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."