A mysterious lawyer shows up in a town, opens a practice, and starts a newspaper.

Two sisters experience very different marriages, and one is saved from a disastrous liaison.

A young man tries to climb up the cutthroat Parisian social ladder during the Bourbon Restoration.

As a young woman and her husband try to make something of their printing business, her brother tries to find success as an author in Paris.

Short fiction from the “Scenes from Private Life” section of Balzac’s Human Comedy.

The story of a young woman who marries badly, told in several vignettes covering the remainder of her life.