Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright, and one of the founders of realism in European literature. His magnum opus was a sequence of almost 100 novels and plays collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the fall of Napoléon Bonaparte in 1815.

Balzac is renowned for his keen observation of detail and his unfiltered representation of society. He created multi-faceted characters, including even his lesser characters being complex, morally ambiguous, and fully human. Inanimate objects are imbued with character as well; the city of Paris, a backdrop for much of his writing, takes on many human qualities.

His writing influenced many famous writers, including Émile Zola, Charles Dickens, Marcel Proust, Gustave Flaubert, and Henry James, and filmmakers like François Truffaut and Jacques Rivette. Many of Balzac's works have been adapted into films and continue to inspire writers today. James called him "really the father of us all."

An enthusiastic reader and independent thinker as a child, Balzac struggled with the teaching style of his grammar school. His willful nature caused trouble throughout his life and frustrated his ambitions in business. After law school, he tried various careers such as publisher, printer, businessman, critic, and politician, but he failed in all of these efforts.

Balzac suffered from health problems throughout his life, possibly due to his intense writing schedule. His relationship with his family was often strained by financial and personal drama. In 1850, Balzac married Ewelina Hańska, a Polish aristocrat and his longtime love, but he died in Paris six months later.