The Balzac Revival in the United States began in the 1880s and continued into the following century. American readers found in the works of Balzac kindred spirits, and saw themselves in the Comédie Humaine in terms of the ambition, desire, energy, and acquisitiveness they shared with some of Balzac’s most memorable characters. Furthermore, the nature of Balzac’s work—a series of long, closely interconnected novels—ideally suited the format of the multi-volume collected edition, which was emerging as a signifier of taste and class. Once Balzac became Virtually institutionalised as part of the culture of the American middle class, the Comédie Humaine became something for the younger generation to repudiate, and many Modernists who read Balzac in their youth distanced themselves from him as adults.

(BOOK REVIEW) Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1993). 287 pp.

(BOOK REVIEW) Newark, Delaware: U of Delaware P, 1997. 235 pp. Index 229-35.