La Peau de chagrin
Encyclopedia
1831 in literature
The year 1831 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* January 15 - Victor Hugo completed his novel Notre-Dame de Paris, known in English as The Hunchback of Notre Dame....
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon....
(1799–1850). Set in early 19th-century Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, it tells the story of a young man who finds a magic piece of shagreen
Shagreen
Shagreen is a type of leather or rawhide consisting of rough untanned skin, formerly made from a horse's back or that of an onager . Shagreen is now commonly made of the skins of sharks and rays....
that fulfills his every desire. For each wish granted, however, the skin shrinks and consumes a portion of his physical energy. La Peau de chagrin belongs to the Études philosophiques group of Balzac's sequence of novels
Novel sequence
A novel sequence is a set or series of novels which share common themes, characters, or settings, but where each novel has its own title and free-standing storyline, and can thus be read independently or out of sequence.-Definitions:...
, La Comédie humaine
La Comédie humaine
La Comédie humaine is the title of Honoré de Balzac's multi-volume collection of interlinked novels and stories depicting French society in the period of the Restoration and the July Monarchy .-Overview:...
.
Before the book was completed, Balzac created excitement about it by publishing a series of articles and story fragments in several Parisian journals. Although he was five months late in delivering the manuscript, he succeeded in generating sufficient interest that the novel sold out instantly upon its publication. A second edition, which included a series of twelve other "philosophical tales", was released one month later.
Although the novel uses fantastic
Fantastic
The Fantastic is a literary term that describes a quality of other literary genres, and, in some cases, is used as a genre in and of itself, although in this case it is often conflated with the Supernatural. The term was originated in the structuralist theory of critic Tzvetan Todorov in his work...
elements, its main focus is a realistic
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
portrayal of the excesses of bourgeois
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
materialism
Economic materialism
Materialism is a mindset that views the consumption and acquisition of material goods as positive and desirable. It is often bound up with a value system which regards social status as being intrinsically linked to affluence as well as the perception that happiness can be increased through...
. Balzac's renowned attention to detail is used to describe a gambling house, an antique shop, a royal banquet, and other locales. He also includes details from his own life as a struggling writer, placing the main character in a home similar to the one he occupied at the start of his literary career. The central theme of La Peau de chagrin is the conflict between desire and longevity. The magic skin represents the owner's life-force, which is depleted through every expression of will, especially when it is employed for the acquisition of power. Ignoring a caution from the shopkeeper who offers him the skin, the protagonist greedily surrounds himself with wealth, only to find himself miserable and decrepit at the story's end.
La Peau de chagrin firmly established Balzac as a writer of significance in France. His social circle widened significantly, and he was sought eagerly by publishers for future projects. The book served as the catalyst for a series of letters he exchanged with a Polish baroness named Ewelina Hańska
Ewelina Hańska
Eveline Hańska was a Polish noblewoman best known for her marriage to French novelist Honoré de Balzac. Born at the Wierzchownia estate in Volhynia, Hańska married landowner Wacław Hański when she was a teenager...
, who later became his wife. It also inspired Giselher Klebe
Giselher Klebe
Giselher Wolfgang Klebe was a German composer. He composed more than 140 works, among them 14 operas, 8 symphonies, 15 solo concerts, chamber music, piano works, and sacred music.-Biography:...
's opera Die tödlichen Wünsche
Die tödlichen Wünsche
Die tödlichen Wünsche, op.27, is an opera by Giselher Klebe who also wrote the libretto based on La peau de chagrin by Honoré de Balzac. It consists of fifteen lyrical scenes in three acts....
.
Background
Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon....
had only begun to achieve recognition as a writer. Although his parents had persuaded him to make his profession the law, he announced in 1819 that he wanted to become an author. His mother was distraught, but she and his father agreed to give him a small income, on the condition that he dedicate himself to writing, and deliver to them half of his gross income from any published work. After moving into a tiny room near the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal
Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal
The Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal in Paris is one of the branches of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.-History:...
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, Balzac wrote for one year, without success. Frustrated, he moved back to his family in the suburb of Villeparisis
Villeparisis
Villeparisis is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It is located in the north-eastern suburbs of Paris from the centre.-Transportation:...
and borrowed money from his parents to pursue his literary ambitions further. He spent the next several years writing simple potboiler
Potboiler
Potboiler or pot-boiler is a term used to describe a poor quality novel, play, opera, or film, or other creative work that was created quickly to make money to pay for the creator's daily expenses . Authors who create potboiler novels or screenplays are sometimes called hack writers...
novels, which he published under a variety of pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
s. He shared some of his income from these with his parents, but by 1828 he still owed them 50,000 franc
Franc
The franc is the name of several currency units, most notably the Swiss franc, still a major world currency today due to the prominence of Swiss financial institutions and the former currency of France, the French franc until the Euro was adopted in 1999...
s.
He published for the first time under his own name in 1829. Les Chouans
Les Chouans
Les Chouans is an 1829 novel by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac and included in the Scènes de la vie militaire section of his novel sequence La Comédie humaine. Set in the French region of Brittany, the novel combines military history with a love story between the aristocratic...
, a novel about royalist forces in Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
, did not succeed commercially, but it made Balzac known in literary circles. He achieved a major success later the same year when he published La Physiologie du mariage, a treatise on the institution of marriage. Bolstered by its popularity, he added to his fame by publishing a variety of short stories and essays in the magazines Revue de Paris
Revue de Paris
Revue de Paris was a French literary magazine founded in 1829 by Louis Desiré Veron....
, La Caricature, and La Mode. He thus made connections in the publishing industry that later helped him to obtain reviews of his novels.
At the time, French literary appetites for fantastic
Fantastic
The Fantastic is a literary term that describes a quality of other literary genres, and, in some cases, is used as a genre in and of itself, although in this case it is often conflated with the Supernatural. The term was originated in the structuralist theory of critic Tzvetan Todorov in his work...
stories had been whetted by the 1829 translation of German writer E. T. A. Hoffmann's collection Fantastic Tales; the gothic fiction
Gothic fiction
Gothic fiction, sometimes referred to as Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. Gothicism's origin is attributed to English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, subtitled "A Gothic Story"...
of England's Ann Radcliffe
Ann Radcliffe
Anne Radcliffe was an English author, and considered the pioneer of the gothic novel . Her style is romantic in its vivid descriptions of landscapes, and long travel scenes, yet the Gothic element is obvious through her use of the supernatural...
; and French author Jules Janin
Jules Janin
Jules Gabriel Janin was a French writer and critic.-Biography:Born in Saint-Étienne , Janin's father was a lawyer, and he was educated first at St. Étienne, and then at the lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris...
's 1829 novel L'Ane Mort et la Femme Guillotinée (The Dead Donkey and the Guillotined Woman). Although he planned a novel in the same tradition, Balzac disliked the term "fantastic", referring to it once as "the vulgar program of a genre in its first flush of newness, to be sure, but already too much worn by the mere abuse of the word".
The politics and culture of France, meanwhile, were in upheaval. After reigning for five controversial years, King Charles X
Charles X of France
Charles X was known for most of his life as the Comte d'Artois before he reigned as King of France and of Navarre from 16 September 1824 until 2 August 1830. A younger brother to Kings Louis XVI and Louis XVIII, he supported the latter in exile and eventually succeeded him...
was forced to abdicate during the July Revolution
July Revolution
The French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution or in French, saw the overthrow of King Charles X of France, the French Bourbon monarch, and the ascent of his cousin Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans, who himself, after 18 precarious years on the throne, would in turn be overthrown...
in the 1830s. He was replaced by Louis-Philippe
Louis-Philippe of France
Louis Philippe I was King of the French from 1830 to 1848 in what was known as the July Monarchy. His father was a duke who supported the French Revolution but was nevertheless guillotined. Louis Philippe fled France as a young man and spent 21 years in exile, including considerable time in the...
, who named himself "King of the French" (rather than the usual "King of France") in an attempt to distance himself from the Ancien Régime. The July Monarchy brought an entrenchment of bourgeois attitudes, in which Balzac saw disorganization and weak leadership.
Writing and publication
Orient
The Orient means "the East." It is a traditional designation for anything that belongs to the Eastern world or the Far East, in relation to Europe. In English it is a metonym that means various parts of Asia.- Derivation :...
al story.") One week later, he published a story fragment called "Le Dernier Napoléon" in La Caricature, under the name "Henri B...". In it, a young man loses his last Napoleon
Napoleon (coin)
The Napoleon is the colloquial term for a former French gold coin. The coins were minted in denominations of , , , , and francs. This article will focus on the 20 franc coins issued during the reign of Napoleon, which are 21 mm in diameter, weigh 6.45 grams and, at 90% pure, contain 0.1867...
coin at a Parisian gambling house, then continues to the Pont Royal
Pont Royal
The Pont Royal is a bridge crossing the river Seine in Paris. It is the third oldest bridge in Paris, after the Pont Neuf and the Pont Marie.-Location:...
to drown himself. During this early stage, Balzac did not think much of the project. He referred to it as "a piece of thorough nonsense in the literary sense, but in which [the author] has sought to introduce certain of the situations in this hard life through which men of genius have passed before achieving anything". Before long, though, his opinion of the story improved.
By January 1831 Balzac had generated enough interest in his idea to secure a contract with publishers Charles Gosselin and Urbain Canel. They agreed on 750 copies of an octavo
Octavo (book)
Octavo is a technical term describing the format of a book, which refers to the size of leaves produced from folding a full sheet of paper on which multiple pages of text were printed to form the individual sections of a book...
edition, with a fee of 1,125 francs
French franc
The franc was a currency of France. Along with the Spanish peseta, it was also a de facto currency used in Andorra . Between 1360 and 1641, it was the name of coins worth 1 livre tournois and it remained in common parlance as a term for this amount of money...
paid to the author upon receipt of the manuscript – by mid-February. Balzac delivered the novel in July.
The novel's delayed publication was a result of Balzac's active social life. He spent many nights dining at the homes of friends, including novelist Eugène Sue
Eugène Sue
Joseph Marie Eugène Sue was a French novelist.He was born in Paris, the son of a distinguished surgeon in Napoleon's army, and is said to have had the Empress Joséphine for godmother. Sue himself acted as surgeon both in the Spanish campaign undertaken by France in 1823 and at the Battle of Navarino...
and his mistress Olympe Pélissier
Olympe Pélissier
Olympe Pélissier was a French artists' model and the second wife of the Italian composer Gioachino Rossini. She sat for Vernet for his painting of Judith and Holofernes....
, as well as the feminist
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
writer George Sand
George Sand
Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, later Baroness Dudevant , best known by her pseudonym George Sand , was a French novelist and memoirist.-Life:...
and her lover Jules Sandeau
Jules Sandeau
Leonard Sylvain Julien Sandeau was a French novelist.He was born at Aubusson , and was sent to Paris to study law, but spent much of his time in unruly behaviour with other students. He met George Sand, then Madame Dudevant, at Le Coudray in the house of a friend, and when she came to Paris in...
. Balzac and Pélissier had a brief affair, and she became the first lover with whom he appeared in public. Eventually he removed himself from Paris by staying with friends in the suburbs, where he committed himself to finishing the work. In late spring he allowed Sand to read a nearly-finished manuscript; she enjoyed it and predicted it would do well.
Finally, in August 1831, La Peau de chagrin: Conte philosophique was published in two volumes. It was a commercial success, and Balzac used his connections in the world of Parisian periodicals to have it reviewed widely. The book sold quickly, and by the end of the month another contract had been signed: Balzac would receive 4,000 francs to publish 1,200 additional copies. This second edition included a series of twelve other stories with fantastic elements, and was released under the title Romans et contes philosophiques (Philosophical Novels and Stories). A third edition, rearranged to fill four volumes, appeared in March 1833.
Synopsis
La Peau de chagrin consists of three sections: "Le Talisman" ("The Talisman"), "La Femme sans cœur" ("The Woman without a Heart"), and "L'Agonie" ("The Agony"). The first edition contained a Preface and a "Moralité", which were excised from subsequent versions. A two-page Epilogue appears at the end of the final section.
Seine
The Seine is a -long river and an important commercial waterway within the Paris Basin in the north of France. It rises at Saint-Seine near Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plateau, flowing through Paris and into the English Channel at Le Havre . It is navigable by ocean-going vessels...
to drown himself. On the way, however, he decides to enter an unusual shop and finds it filled with curiosities from around the world. The elderly shopkeeper leads him to a piece of shagreen
Shagreen
Shagreen is a type of leather or rawhide consisting of rough untanned skin, formerly made from a horse's back or that of an onager . Shagreen is now commonly made of the skins of sharks and rays....
hanging on the wall. It is inscribed with "Oriental" writing; the old man calls it "Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
", but it is imprecise Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
. The skin promises to fulfill any wish of its owner, shrinking slightly upon the fulfillment of each desire. The shopkeeper is willing to let Valentin take it without charge, but urges him not to accept the offer. Valentin waves away the shopkeeper's warnings and takes the skin, wishing for a royal banquet
Banquet
A banquet is a large meal or feast, complete with main courses and desserts. It usually serves a purpose such as a charitable gathering, a ceremony, or a celebration, and is often preceded or followed by speeches in honour of someone....
, filled with wine, women, and friends. He is immediately met by acquaintances who invite him to such an event; they spend hours eating, drinking, and talking.
Part two, "La Femme sans cœur", is narrated as a flashback
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
from Valentin's point of view. He complains to his friend Émile about his early days as a scholar, living in poverty with an elderly landlord and her daughter Pauline, while trying fruitlessly to win the heart of a beautiful but aloof woman named Foedora. Along the way he is tutored by an older man named Eugène de Rastignac
Eugène de Rastignac
Eugène de Rastignac is a fictional character from La Comédie humaine series of novels by Honoré de Balzac. He appears as a main character in Le Père Goriot and his social advancement in the post-revolutionary French world depicted by Balzac can be followed through Rastignac's various appearances...
, who encourages him to immerse himself in the world of high society. Benefiting from the kindness of his landladies, Valentin maneuvers his way into Foedora's circle of friends. Unable to win her affection, however, he becomes the miserable and destitute man found at the start of "Le Talisman".
"L'Agonie" begins several years after the feast of parts one and two. Valentin, having used the talisman to secure a large income, finds both the skin and his health dwindling. The situation causes him to panic, horrified that further desires will hasten the end of his life. He organizes his home to avoid the possibility of wishing for anything: his servant, Jonathan, arranges food, clothing, and visitors with precise regularity. Events beyond his control cause him to wish for various things, however, and the skin continues to recede. Desperate, the sickly Valentin tries to find some way of stretching the skin, and takes a trip to the spa town
Spa town
A spa town is a town situated around a mineral spa . Patrons resorted to spas to "take the waters" for their purported health benefits. The word comes from the Belgian town Spa. In continental Europe a spa was known as a ville d'eau...
of Aix-les-Bains
Aix-les-Bains
Aix-les-Bains is a commune in the Savoie department in the Rhône-Alpes region in south-eastern France.It is situated on the shore of Lac du Bourget, by rail north of Chambéry.-Geography:...
in the hope of recovering his vitality.
With the skin no larger than a periwinkle
Vinca
Vinca is a genus of six species in the family Apocynaceae, native to Europe, northwest Africa and southwest Asia. The English name periwinkle is shared with the related genus Catharanthus .-Description:Vinca plants are subshrubs or herbaceous, and have slender trailing stems 1–2 m long...
leaf, he is visited by Pauline in his room; she expresses her love for him. When she learns the truth about the shagreen and her role in Raphaël's demise, she is horrified. Raphaël cannot control his desire for her and she rushes into an adjoining room to escape him and so save his life. He pounds on the door and declares both his love and his desire to die in her arms. She, meanwhile, is trying to kill herself to free him from his desire. He breaks down the door, they consummate their love in a fiery moment of passion, and he dies.
Style
Although he preferred the term "philosophical", Balzac's novel is based upon a fantasticFantastic
The Fantastic is a literary term that describes a quality of other literary genres, and, in some cases, is used as a genre in and of itself, although in this case it is often conflated with the Supernatural. The term was originated in the structuralist theory of critic Tzvetan Todorov in his work...
premise. The skin grants a world of possibility to Valentin, and he uses it to satisfy many desires. Pressured into a duel
Duel
A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two individuals, with matched weapons in accordance with agreed-upon rules.Duels in this form were chiefly practised in Early Modern Europe, with precedents in the medieval code of chivalry, and continued into the modern period especially among...
, for example, he explains how he need neither avoid his opponent's gunshot nor aim his own weapon; the outcome is inevitable. He fires without care, and kills the other man instantly. Elsewhere, the supernatural
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
qualities of the skin are demonstrated when it resists the efforts of a chemist
Chemist
A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...
and a physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
to stretch it.
This inclusion of the fantastic, however, is mostly a framework by which the author discusses human nature
Human nature
Human nature refers to the distinguishing characteristics, including ways of thinking, feeling and acting, that humans tend to have naturally....
and society
Society
A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...
. One critic suggests that "the story would be much the same without it". Balzac had used supernatural elements in the potboiler novels he published under noms de plume
Pen name
A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
, but their presence in Peau de chagrin signaled a turning point in his approach to the use of symbol
Symbol
A symbol is something which represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for...
ism. Whereas he had used fantastic objects and events in earlier works, they were mostly simple plot points or uncomplicated devices for suspense. With La Peau de chagrin, on the other hand, the talisman represents Valentin's soul; at the same time, his demise is symbolic of a greater social decline. Balzac's real foci in the 1831 novel are the power of human desire and the nature of society after the July Revolution. French writer and critic Félicien Marceau
Félicien Marceau
Félicien Marceau is the pen name of Louis Carette a French novelist, playwright and essayist originally from Belgium. He was close to the Hussards right-wing literary movement, itself close to the monarchist .He received the Prix Goncourt for his book Creezy in 1969...
even suggests that the symbolism in the novel allows a purer analysis than the individual case studies
Case study
A case study is an intensive analysis of an individual unit stressing developmental factors in relation to context. The case study is common in social sciences and life sciences. Case studies may be descriptive or explanatory. The latter type is used to explore causation in order to find...
of other Balzac novels; by removing the analysis to an abstract level, it becomes less complicated by variations of individual personality. As an everyman
Everyman
In literature and drama, the term everyman has come to mean an ordinary individual, with whom the audience or reader is supposed to be able to identify easily, and who is often placed in extraordinary circumstances...
, Valentin displays the essential characteristics of human nature, not a particular person's approach to the dilemma offered by the skin.
In his Preface to the novel's first edition, Balzac meditates on the usefulness of fantastic elements: "[Writers] invent the true, by analogy, or they see the object to be described, whether the object comes to them or they go toward the object ... Have men the power to bring the universe into their brain, or is their brain a talisman with which they abolish the laws of time and space?" Critics agree that Balzac's goal in La Peau de chagrin was the former.
Realism
The novel is widely cited as an important early example of the realismRealism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
for which Balzac became famous. Descriptions of Paris are one example: the novel is filled with actual locations, including the Palais Royal
Palais Royal
The Palais-Royal, originally called the Palais-Cardinal, is a palace and an associated garden located in the 1st arrondissement of Paris...
and the Notre Dame Cathedral
Notre Dame de Paris
Notre Dame de Paris , also known as Notre Dame Cathedral, is a Gothic, Roman Catholic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement of Paris, France. It is the cathedral of the Catholic Archdiocese of Paris: that is, it is the church that contains the cathedra of...
. The narration and characters allude
Allusion
An allusion is a figure of speech that makes a reference to, or representation of, people, places, events, literary work, myths, or works of art, either directly or by implication. M. H...
repeatedly to art and culture, from Gioachino Rossini's opera Tancredi
Tancredi
Tancredi is a melodramma eroico in two acts by composer Gioachino Rossini and librettist Gaetano Rossi, based on Voltaire's play Tancrède...
to the statue of Venus de Milo
Venus de Milo
Aphrodite of Milos , better known as the Venus de Milo, is an ancient Greek statue and one of the most famous works of ancient Greek sculpture. Created at some time between 130 and 100 BC, it is believed to depict Aphrodite the Greek goddess of love and beauty. It is a marble sculpture, slightly...
.
The book's third paragraph contains a long description of the process and purpose behind the ritual in gambling
Gambling
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...
houses whereby "the law despoils you of your hat at the outset". The atmosphere of the establishment is described in precise detail, from the faces of the players to the "greasy" wallpaper and the tablecloth "worn by the friction of gold". The emphasis on money evoked in the first pages – and its contrast with the decrepit surroundings – mirrors the novel's themes of social organization and economic materialism
Economic materialism
Materialism is a mindset that views the consumption and acquisition of material goods as positive and desirable. It is often bound up with a value system which regards social status as being intrinsically linked to affluence as well as the perception that happiness can be increased through...
.
The confluence of realist detail with symbolic meaning continues when Valentin enters the antique shop; the store represents the planet itself. As he wanders about, he tours the world through the relics of its various epochs: "Every land of earth seemed to have contributed some stray fragment of its learning, some example of its art." The shop contains a painting of Napoleon; a Moorish
Moors
The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of the Maghreb region who are predominately of Berber and Arab descent. They came to conquer and rule the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years. At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed...
yataghan; an idol of the Tartars; portraits of Dutch burgomaster
Burgomaster
Burgomaster is the English form of various terms in or derived from Germanic languages for the chief magistrate or chairman of the executive council of a sub-national level of administration...
s; a bust of Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
; an Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
ian mummy
Mummy
A mummy is a body, human or animal, whose skin and organs have been preserved by either intentional or incidental exposure to chemicals, extreme coldness , very low humidity, or lack of air when bodies are submerged in bogs, so that the recovered body will not decay further if kept in cool and dry...
; an Etruscan
Etruscan civilization
Etruscan civilization is the modern English name given to a civilization of ancient Italy in the area corresponding roughly to Tuscany. The ancient Romans called its creators the Tusci or Etrusci...
vase; a Chinese dragon
Chinese dragon
Chinese dragons are legendary creatures in Chinese mythology and folklore, with mythic counterparts among Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Bhutanese, Western and Turkic dragons. In Chinese art, dragons are typically portrayed as long, scaled, serpentine creatures with four legs...
; and hundreds of other objects. The panorama of human activity reaches a moral fork in the road when the shopkeeper leads Valentin to Raphael
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
's portrait of Jesus Christ. It does not deter him from his goal, however; only when he finds the skin does Valentin decide to abort his suicidal mission. In doing so, he demonstrates humanity favoring ego over divine salvation.
Opening image
Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne was an Irish novelist and an Anglican clergyman. He is best known for his novels The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy; but he also published many sermons, wrote memoirs, and was involved in local politics...
's 1759 novel Tristram Shandy
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is a novel by Laurence Sterne. It was published in nine volumes, the first two appearing in 1759, and seven others following over the next 10 years....
: a curvy line drawn in the air by a character seeking to express the freedom enjoyed "whilst a man is free". Balzac never explained his purpose behind the use of the symbol, and its significance to La Peau de chagrin is the subject of debate. In his comprehensive review of La Comédie humaine, Herbert J. Hunt connects the "serpentine squiggle" to the "sinuous design" of Balzac's novel. Critic Martin Kanes, however, suggests that the image symbolizes the impossibility of language to express an idea fully. This dilemma, he proposes, is directly related to the conflict between will and knowledge indicated by the shopkeeper at the start of the novel.
Autobiography
Balzac mined his own life for details in the first parts of La Peau de Chagrin, and he likely modeled the protagonist Raphaël de Valentin on himself. Details recounted by Valentin of his impoverished living quarters are autobiographicalAutobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
allusions to Balzac's earliest days as an author: "Nothing could be uglier than this garret, awaiting its scholar, with its dingy yellow walls and odor of poverty. The roofing fell in a steep slope, and the sky was visible through chinks in the tiles. There was room for a bed, a table, and a few chairs, and beneath the highest point of the roof my piano could stand." Although they allow for a degree of embellishment, biographers and critics agree that Balzac was drawing from his own experience.
Other parts of the story also derive from the author's life: Balzac once attended a feast held by the Marquis de Las Marismas, who planned to launch a newspaper – the same situation in which Valentin finds himself after expressing his first wish to the talisman. Later, Valentin visits the opera armed with a powerful set of glasses
Opera glasses
Opera glasses, also known as theater binoculars or Galilean binoculars, are compact, low-power optical magnification devices, usually used at performance events, whose name is derived from traditional use at opera performances. Magnification power below 5x is usually desired in these circumstances...
that allow him to observe every flaw in the women on stage (to guard against desire). These may also have been drawn from Balzac's experience, as he once wrote in a letter about a set of "divine" opera glasses he ordered from the Paris Observatory
Paris Observatory
The Paris Observatory is the foremost astronomical observatory of France, and one of the largest astronomical centres in the world...
.
Olympe Pélissier
Olympe Pélissier was a French artists' model and the second wife of the Italian composer Gioachino Rossini. She sat for Vernet for his painting of Judith and Holofernes....
. A scene in which Valentin hides in Foedora's bedroom to watch her undress is said to come from a similar situation wherein Balzac secretly observed Pélissier. It's probable that Pélissier was not the model for Foedora, however, since she accepted Balzac's advances and wrote him friendly letters; Foedora, by contrast, declares herself outside the reach of any interested lover. Critics agree that the "Woman without a Heart" described in the novel is a composite of other women Balzac knew. The character of Pauline, meanwhile, was likely influenced by another of Balzac's mistresses, Laure de Berny.
Vouloir, pouvoir, and savoir
At the start of the book, the shopkeeper discusses with Valentin "the great secret of human life". They consist of three words, which Balzac renders in capital letters: VOULOIR ("to will"), POUVOIR ("to be able"), and SAVOIR ("to know"). Will, he explains, consumes us; power (or, in one translation, "to have your will") destroys us; and knowledge soothes us. These three concepts form the philosophical foundation of the novel.The talisman connects these precepts to the theory of vitalism
Vitalism
Vitalism, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is#a doctrine that the functions of a living organism are due to a vital principle distinct from biochemical reactions...
; it physically represents the life force of its owner, and is reduced with each exercise of the will. The shopkeeper tries to warn Valentin that the wisest path lies not in exercising his will or securing power, but in developing the mind. "What is folly", he asks Valentin, "if not an excess of will and power?" Overcome with the possibilities offered by the skin, however, the young man throws caution to the wind and embraces his desire. Upon grabbing the talisman, he declares: "I want to live with excess". Only when his life force is nearly depleted does he recognize his mistake: "It suddenly struck him that the possession of power, no matter how enormous, did not bring with it the knowledge of how to use it ... [he] had had everything in his power, and he had done nothing."
The will, Balzac cautions, is a destructive force that seeks only to acquire power unless tempered by knowledge. The shopkeeper presents a foil
Foil (literature)
In fiction, a foil is a character who contrasts with another character in order to highlight particular qualities of another character....
for Valentin's future self, offering study and mental development as an alternative to consuming desire. Foedora also serves as a model for resistance to the corruption of will, insofar as she seeks at all times to excite desire in others while never giving in to her own. That Valentin is happiest living in the material squalor of his tiny garret – lost in study and writing, with the good-hearted Pauline giving herself to him – underscores the irony of his misery at the end of the book, when he is surrounded with the fruits of his material desire.
Society
Science offers no panacea
Panacea (medicine)
The panacea , named after the Greek goddess of healing, Panacea, also known as panchrest, was supposed to be a remedy that would cure all diseases and prolong life indefinitely...
. In one scene, a group of doctors offer a range of quickly formulated opinions as to the cause of Valentin's feebleness. In another, a physicist and a chemist admit defeat after employing a range of tactics designed to stretch the skin. All of these scientific approaches lack an understanding of the true crisis, and are therefore doomed to fail. Although it is only shown in glimpses – the image of Christ, for example, painted by Valentin's namesake
Namesake
Namesake is a term used to characterize a person, place, thing, quality, action, state, or idea that has the same, or a similar, name to another....
, the Renaissance artist Raphael
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
– Balzac wished to remind readers that Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
offered the potential to temper deadly excess. After failing in their efforts to stretch the skin, the chemist declares: "I believe in the devil"; "And I in God", replies the physicist.
The corruption of excess is related to social disorganization in a description at the start of the final section. Physically feeble though living in absolute luxury, Raphaël de Valentin is described as retaining in his eyes "an extraordinary intelligence" with which he is able to see "everything at once":
That expression was painful to see ... It was the inscrutable glance of helplessness that must perforce consign its desires to the depths of its own heart; or of a miser enjoying in imagination all the pleasures that his money could procure for him, while he declines to lessen his hoard; the look of a bound Prometheus, of the fallen Napoleon of 1815, when he learned at the Elysee the strategical blunder that his enemies had made, and asked for twenty-four hours of command in vain ...
Reception and legacy
Émile Deschamps
Émile de Saint-Amand Deschamps was a French poet. He was born at Bourges. Deschamps was one of the chiefs of the Romantic school. To further the cause of romanticism he founded with Victor Hugo La Muse Française , a journal to which he contributed verses and stories signed "Le Jeune Moraliste." ...
praised the rhythm of the novel, and the religious commentator Charles Forbes René de Montalembert
Charles Forbes René de Montalembert
Charles Forbes René de Montalembert was a French publicist and historian.-Family history:He belonged to a family of Angoumois, which could trace its descent back to the 13th century. Charters carry the history of the house two centuries further...
indicated approvingly that it highlighted the need for more spirituality in society as a whole. Although some critics chastised Balzac for reveling in negativity, others felt it simply reflected the condition of French society. German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
declared it a shining example of the "incurable corruption of the French nation". Critics argue about whether Goethe's comments were praise for the novel or not.
This storm of publicity caused a flurry of activity as readers around France scrambled to obtain the novel. Balzac's friend and La Caricature editor Charles Philipon
Charles Philipon
Charles Philipon . Born in Lyon, he was a French lithographer, caricaturist and journalist. He was the editor of the La Caricature and of Le Charivari, both satirical political journals....
wrote to the author one week after publication: "there is no getting hold of La Peau de chagrin. Grandville
Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard
Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard , generally known by the pseudonym of J. J. Grandville, was a French caricaturist.-Life and work:...
had to stop everything to read it, because the librarian sent round every half-hour to ask if he had finished." Friends near and far wrote to Balzac indicating their similar difficulties in locating copies. The second edition was released one month later, and it was followed by parodies and derivative works from other writers. Balzac's friend Théophile Gautier
Théophile Gautier
Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, art critic and literary critic....
included a comical homage in his 1833 story collection Les Jeunes-France when, during a recreation of the feast from Balzac's novel, a character says: "This is the point at which I'm supposed to pour wine down my waistcoat ... It says so in black and white on page 171 of La Peau de chagrin ... And this is where I have to toss a 100-sou coin in the air to see whether or not there's a God."
The novel established Balzac as a prominent figure in the world of French literature. Publishers fought amongst themselves to publish his future work, and he became a mainstay on the list of invitation for social functions around Paris. Balzac took pride in his novel's success, and declared to the editor of the journal L'Avenir that "Elle est donc le point de départ de mon ouvrage" ("This is the point of departure for my body of work"). Consistently popular even after his death, La Peau de chagrin was republished nineteen times between 1850 and 1880.
When he developed his scheme for organizing all of his novels and stories into a single sequence
Novel sequence
A novel sequence is a set or series of novels which share common themes, characters, or settings, but where each novel has its own title and free-standing storyline, and can thus be read independently or out of sequence.-Definitions:...
called La Comédie humaine
La Comédie humaine
La Comédie humaine is the title of Honoré de Balzac's multi-volume collection of interlinked novels and stories depicting French society in the period of the Restoration and the July Monarchy .-Overview:...
, Balzac placed La Peau de chagrin at the start of the section called Études philosophiques ("Philosophical Studies"). Like the other works in this category – including the similarly autobiographical Louis Lambert
Louis Lambert (novel)
Louis Lambert is an 1832 novel by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac , included in the Études philosophiques section of his novel sequence La Comédie humaine...
(1832) – it deals with philosophy and the supernatural. But it also provides a bridge to the realism of the Études des mœurs ("Study of Manners"), where the majority of his novels were located.
L'Étrangère
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, where a baron
Baron
Baron is a title of nobility. The word baron comes from Old French baron, itself from Old High German and Latin baro meaning " man, warrior"; it merged with cognate Old English beorn meaning "nobleman"...
ess named Ewelina Hańska
Ewelina Hańska
Eveline Hańska was a Polish noblewoman best known for her marriage to French novelist Honoré de Balzac. Born at the Wierzchownia estate in Volhynia, Hańska married landowner Wacław Hański when she was a teenager...
read about Balzac's novels in newspapers she received from Paris. Intrigued, she ordered copies of his work, and she read them with her cousins and friends around Volhynia
Volhynia
Volhynia, Volynia, or Volyn is a historic region in western Ukraine located between the rivers Prypiat and Southern Bug River, to the north of Galicia and Podolia; the region is named for the former city of Volyn or Velyn, said to have been located on the Southern Bug River, whose name may come...
. They were impressed by the understanding he showed toward women in La Physiologie du mariage, but felt that La Peau de chagrin portrayed them in a cruel and unforgiving light. Hańska wrote a letter to Balzac, signed it as L'Étrangère ("The Stranger"), and mailed it from Odessa
Odessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...
on 28 February 1832.
With no return address, Balzac was left to reply in the Gazette de France, with the hope that she would see the notice. She did not, but wrote again in November: "Your soul embraces centuries, monsieur; its philosophical concepts appear to be the fruit of long study matured by time; yet I am told you are still young. I would like to know you, but feel I have no need to do so. I know you through my own spiritual instinct; I picture you in my own way, and feel that if I were to actually set eyes upon you, I should instantly exclaim, 'That is he!'"
Eventually she revealed herself to him, and they began a correspondence that lasted for fifteen years. Although she remained faithful to her husband Wacław, Mme. Hańska and Balzac enjoyed an emotional intimacy through their letters. When the baron died in 1841, the French author began to pursue the relationship outside the written page. They wed in the town of Berdychiv
Berdychiv
Berdychiv is a historic city in the Zhytomyr Oblast of northern Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Berdychiv Raion , the city itself is of direct oblast subordinance, and is located south of the oblast capital, Zhytomyr, at around .The current estimated population is around...
on 14 March 1850, five months before he died.
Recurring characters
Because it was among the first novels he released under his own name, Balzac did not use characters in La Peau de chagrin from previous works. He did, however, introduce several individuals who resurfaced in later stories. Most significant of these is Eugène de RastignacEugène de Rastignac
Eugène de Rastignac is a fictional character from La Comédie humaine series of novels by Honoré de Balzac. He appears as a main character in Le Père Goriot and his social advancement in the post-revolutionary French world depicted by Balzac can be followed through Rastignac's various appearances...
, the older gentleman who tutors Valentin in the vicious ways of high society. Thirty pages into the writing of his 1834 novel Le Père Goriot
Le Père Goriot
Le Père Goriot is an 1835 novel by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac , included in the Scènes de la vie Parisienne section of his novel sequence La Comédie humaine...
, Balzac suddenly crossed out the name he had been using for a character – Massiac – and used Rastignac instead. The relationship between teacher and student in La Peau de chagrin is mirrored in Le Père Goriot, when the young Rastignac is guided in the ways of social realpolitik
Realpolitik
Realpolitik refers to politics or diplomacy based primarily on power and on practical and material factors and considerations, rather than ideological notions or moralistic or ethical premises...
by the incognito criminal Vautrin
Vautrin
Vautrin is a character from the novels of French writer Honoré de Balzac in the La Comédie humaine series. His real name is Jacques Collin...
.
The use of recurring characters lends Balzac's work a cohesion and atmosphere unlike any other series of novels. It enables a depth of characterization that goes beyond simple narration or dialogue. "When the characters reappear", notes the critic Samuel Rogers, "they do not step out of nowhere; they emerge from the privacy of their own lives which, for an interval, we have not been allowed to see." Although the complexity of these characters' lives inevitably led Balzac to make errors of chronology and consistency, the mistakes are considered minor in the overall scope of the project. Readers are more often troubled by the sheer number of people in Balzac's world, and feel deprived of important context for the characters. Detective novelist Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
said that he never tried to read Balzac, because he "did not know where to begin".
Influence
Balzac's novel was adapted for the librettoLibretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
of Giselher Klebe
Giselher Klebe
Giselher Wolfgang Klebe was a German composer. He composed more than 140 works, among them 14 operas, 8 symphonies, 15 solo concerts, chamber music, piano works, and sacred music.-Biography:...
's 1959 opera Die tödlichen Wünsche
Die tödlichen Wünsche
Die tödlichen Wünsche, op.27, is an opera by Giselher Klebe who also wrote the libretto based on La peau de chagrin by Honoré de Balzac. It consists of fifteen lyrical scenes in three acts....
(The Deadly Wishes). 1977–1978 the German composer Fritz Geißler
Fritz Geißler
Fritz Geißler was one of the most important composers of the German Democratic Republic....
composed Das Chagrinleder after a libretto by Günther Deicke. In 1989–1990 the Russian composer Yuri Khanon
Yuri Khanon
Yuri Khanon is a pen name of Yuri Feliksovich Soloviev-Savoyarov , a Russian composer. Prior to 1993, he wrote under a pen name Yuri Khanin, but later transformed it into Yuri Khanon, spelling it in a pre-1918 Russian style as ХанонЪ. Khanon was born on Juny 16, 1965 in Leningrad...
wrote the ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
L’Os de chagrin (The Shagreen Bone), based on Balzac's text, which included an opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
-interlude
Entr'acte
' is French for "between the acts" . It can mean a pause between two parts of a stage production, synonymous to an intermission, but it more often indicates a piece of music performed between acts of a theatrical production...
of the same name. In 1992 a biographic
Biographical film
A biographical film, or biopic , is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person or people. They differ from films “based on a true story” or “historical films” in that they attempt to comprehensively tell a person’s life story or at least the most historically important years of their...
pseudo-documentary
Mockumentary
A mockumentary , is a type of film or television show in which fictitious events are presented in documentary format. These productions are often used to analyze or comment on current events and issues by using a fictitious setting, or to parody the documentary form itself...
in the form of an opera-film based on his opera L`os de Chagrin («Chagrenevaia Kost»,ru) was released.
The novel has also been cited as a possible influence on Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
for his 1890 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only published novel by Oscar Wilde, appearing as the lead story in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine on 20 June 1890, printed as the July 1890 issue of this magazine...
, although this hypothesis is rejected by most scholars. The protagonist, Dorian Gray, acquires a magical portrait which ages while he remains forever youthful.
In 1960 Croatian animator Vladimir Kristl made an animated short entitled Šagrenska koža (The Piece of Shagreen Leather) inspired by Balzac's novel.
Toward the end of his life, Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
felt a special connection to Balzac's novel, since he believed that his world was shrinking like Valentin's talisman. Diagnosed with a fatal tumor
Tumor
A tumor or tumour is commonly used as a synonym for a neoplasm that appears enlarged in size. Tumor is not synonymous with cancer...
, Freud resolved to commit suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
. After re-reading La Peau de chagrin, he said to his doctor: "This was the proper book for me to read; it deals with shrinking and starvation." The next day, his doctor administered a lethal dose of morphine
Morphine
Morphine is a potent opiate analgesic medication and is considered to be the prototypical opioid. It was first isolated in 1804 by Friedrich Sertürner, first distributed by same in 1817, and first commercially sold by Merck in 1827, which at the time was a single small chemists' shop. It was more...
, and Freud died.
The novel is also featured in Truffaut's Mississippi Mermaid
Mississippi Mermaid
Mississippi Mermaid is a French film directed by François Truffaut. The film is adapted from the 1947 William Irish novel Waltz into Darkness. The film features Jean-Paul Belmondo, Catherine Deneuve, and others. The film was the 17th highest grossing film of the year with a total of 1,221,027...
, with Jean-Paul Belmondo's character studying it while Catherine Deneuve serves him tea laced with rat poison.
In 2011 French director Marianne Badrichani
Marianne Badrichani
Marianne Badrichani is a French theatre director and actor trainer . She has been living in London since 2000In 2011 she directed an adaptation of Balzac's La Peau de chagrin in London's Holland park- External links :* *...
staged an adaptation of La Peau de Chagrin in London's Holland Park
Holland Park
Holland Park is a district and a public park in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, in west central London, England.Holland Park has a reputation as an affluent and fashionable area, known for attractive large Victorian townhouses, and high-class shopping and restaurants...
External links
- The Magic Skin at Project GutenbergProject GutenbergProject Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...
(plain text) - The Magic Skin at Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
(scanned books original editions color illustrated)