Le Lys dans la vallée
 Image from Le Lys dans la Vallée | |
| Author | Honoré de Balzac |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Édouard Toudouze |
| Language | French |
| Series | La Comédie humaine |
| Publisher | Edmond Werdet |
Publication date | 1835 |
| Publication place | France |
| Preceded by | Le Curé de village |
| Followed by | La Peau de chagrin |
Le Lys dans la Vallée (English: The Lily of the Valley) is an 1835 novel about love and society by the French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850). It concerns the emotionally vibrant but never consummated affection between Félix de Vandenesse and Henriette de Mortsauf. It is part of his series of novels (or Roman-fleuve) known as La Comédie humaine (The Human Comedy), which parodies and depicts French society in the period of the Bourbon Restoration and the July Monarchy (1815–1848). In his novel he also mentions the château Azay-le-Rideau, which can still be visited today.
Inspiration
Henriette de Mortsauf was modelled on Balzac's close friend Laure Antoinette de Berny (née Hinner), a woman 22 years his senior who greatly encouraged his early career.[1] Mme. de Berny died shortly after reading the completed novel[2] — in which Henriette also dies.
English translations
- Katharine Prescott Wormeley: The Lily of the Valley (Roberts Bros., 1891)[3]
- Peter Bush: The Lily of the Valley (New York Review Books, 2024)
References
- ^ Honoré de Balzac by Albert Keim and Louis Lumet, chapter 4
- ^ Women in the Life of Balzac by Juanita Helm Floyd
- ^ Balzac, Honoré de; Wormeley, Katharine Prescott (1891). The lily of the valley. University of California Libraries. Boston, Roberts brothers.
External links
- (in French) Le Lys dans la vallée, audio version
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